Species III. EM-BERIZA ORYZIVORA. 



RICEBUNTING. 



[Plate XII. Figs. 1 and 2.] 



Emheriza oryzivora, Linn. Syst. p. 311, 16. — Le Ortolan de la Caroline, Briss. 

 Orn. III., p. 282, 8, pi. 15, fig. 3. PI. Enl. 388, fig. \.—L' Agripenne, ou L' Ortolan 

 de JRiz, Buff. Ois. iT.,lp. 337. — Rice-bird, Catesb. Car. i., pi. 14. — Edw. pi. 2. — 

 Latham ii., p. 188, No. 2-5. 



This is, the Bobolink of the Eastern and Northern States, and the 

 Mice and Reed-bird of Pennsylvania and the Southern States. Though 

 small in size, he is not so in consequence; his coming is hailed by the 

 sportsman with pleasure ; while the careful planter looks upon him as a 

 devouring scourge, and worse than a plague of locusts. Three good 

 qualities, however, entitle him to our notice, particularly as these three 

 are rarely found in the same individual ; — his plumage is beautiful, his 

 song highly musical, and his flesh excellent. I might also add, that the 

 immense range of his migrations, and the havoc he commits, are not the 

 least interesting parts of his history. 



The winter residence of this species I suppose to be from Mexico to 

 the mouth of the Amazon, from whence in hosts innumerable he regu- 

 larly issues every spring, perhaps to both hemispheres, extending his 

 migrations northerly as far as the banks of the Illinois and the shores 

 of the St. Lawrence. Could the fact be ascertained, which has been 

 asserted by some writers, that the emigration of these birds was 

 altogether unknown in this part of the continent, previous to the intro- 

 duction of rice plantations, it would certainly be interesting. Yet, why 

 should these migrations reach at least a thousand miles beyond those 

 places where rice is now planted ; and this not in occasional excursions, 

 but regularly to breed, and rear their young, where rice never was, and 

 probably never will be cultivated ? Their so recent arrival on this part of 

 the continent I believe to be altogether imaginary, because, though there 

 were not a single grain of rice cultivated within the United States, the 

 country produces an exuberance of food of which they are no less fond. 

 Insects of various kinds, grubs, May-flies and caterpillars, the young 

 ears of Indian corn, and the seeds of the wild oats, or, as it is called in 

 Pennsylvania, reeds (the Zizania aquatica of Linnseus), which grows in 

 prodigious abundance along the marshy shores of our large rivers, fur- 



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