234 The Bobolink 



brings them into the region of the ricej where, at the 

 expense of the planter, they recuperate veiy rapidly. 

 If the arrival of the birds was but a few weeks earlier 

 or a few weeks later, the rice would escape uninjured. 



During the southern migration opposite conditions 

 prevail, although with similar resufts to the rice grower; 

 the birds now take the land migration first, stopping 

 in the Southern States to recruit their exhausted 

 energies, caused by the rearing of the brood and by the 

 long flight. This stop-over period in the South comes 

 at the season of the rice harvest, furnishing the birds 

 with an easy food supply — ^far easier than it would be 

 to get it from the uncultivated fields — rand this, 

 coupled with the fact that the rice fields are limited 

 in area, causes an individual loss to rice growers that 

 would not be felt to the same extent if the crop were 

 a general one, such as the oat or wheat crop. 



That birds do not go much out of their old routes for 

 food is well illustrated in the case of Texas. It is fast 

 becoming a rice growing state, but as it is a little to 

 one side of the path of the bobolinks that migrate 

 through the Mississippi valley, the rice fields are not 

 very seriously damaged. 



We can easily see that to the southern rice grower 

 the beauty of the bobolink, the sweet melody of its 

 song, Bryant's poem — "Robert of Lincoln" — or the 



