BIRDS OF NEW YORK 225 



order to preserve the crop from their depredations, at least if the grain 

 is still in the milk. It has been estimated by the Biological Survey experts 

 that millions of dollars damage is done every year to the rice crop of 

 the South by the Ricebird, as he is invariably called in the southern states. 

 The Bobolink does not remain in the rice states, but before he has left 

 sometimes a large portion of the planters' income has been destroyed. 

 Therefore, more than any of our native species, he has a double reputation, 

 being perhaps our most favorite songbird in the northern states and the 

 most dreaded of all the small birds of America in the southern states. 



Molothrus ater ater (Boddaert) 

 Cowhird 



Plate 74 



Oriolus ater Boddaert. Table PI. Enl. 1783. 37 



Molothrus pecoris DeKay. Zool. N. Y. 1844. pt 2, p. 143, fig. 45 (?) 



Molothrus ater ater A. O. U. Check List. Ed. 3. 1910. p. 231. No. 495 



molothrus, Gr., "one who enters others' habitations unbidden " (Swainson); ater, Lat., 

 black 



Description. Head and neck " coffee " or " deep wood " brown with 

 purplish iridescence. The rest of the plumage glossy black, lustrous with 

 greenish and bluish reflections. Female: Dusky brownish gray, often 

 with dark shaft streaks giving a slightly streaked appearance. Young in 

 their first plumage resemble the female, but the belly is whiter, tinged 

 with greenish buff and spotted with dusky. In August and September 

 while changing to the adult plumage, many of the young are seen in pied 

 coloration, large patches of black showing among the grayish or mouse- 

 colored immature plumage. 



Length 7.5-8.25 inches; 9 7-7.5; extent 11.7-13.5; wing 4-46; tail 

 3-3.35; tarsus' I ; bill .68. 



Distribution. This species breeds in North America from southern 

 Mackenzie and Keewatin, Quebec and New Brunswick to northern Cali- 

 fornia, northern New Mexico, Texas, Louisiana and North Carolina, and 

 winters from southern New York to the gulf coast and central Mexico. 

 In New York it is altogether too common a summer resident in all portions 



of the State up to the beginning of the Canadian zone, but it also invades 

 15 



