THE BOBOLINK. 21 
caterpillars, except 3 percent of predaceous beetles (Carabide) in 
one stomach and 15 percent of parasitic Hymenoptera (Ichneumonide) 
in the other. Of the nine birds shot in the rice fields in September, 
one had eaten 15 percent of insects and another 90 percent. The 
other seven had taken no animal matter, but one had eaten 10, and 
another 70 percent of weed seed (umew). All the other food, about 
79 percent of the whole, was rice. 
SUMMARY. 
In a summary of its food habits this species must be treated differ- 
ently from other birds. It is not enough merely to sum up the 
noxious insects and weeds destroyed and set them on one side of the 
account, with the valuable grain eaten on the other, and then strike 
a balance; though even in this case we should probably decide against 
the bird, or at least be forced to say, as of the redwing, that its harm- 
fulness is due to an excess of individuals. The case of the bobolink 
is peculiar. If it preyed upon all kinds of grain or upon any one 
kind whose cultivation was more general, like wheat or oats, its 
ravages would be more widely distributed and would consequently 
fall less heavily upon the individual cultivator; and the damage, 
although the same, would be more evenly divided and so less appre- 
ciated. But instead of this, the attacks of the whole species are 
directed upon a single crop, and one which is grown over a very 
limited area and by comparatively few cultivators. Again, unlike 
most species that remain in the South during the winter and subsist 
to a great extent upon scattered waste grain, the bobolink makes its 
attacks at planting time and at or immediately before the full tide 
of harvest—just when it is capable of doing the greatest damage. 
The redwing, although it eats rice at harvest, remains through the 
winter, eating the waste rice, which, if left upon the field, would 
become what is called ‘volunteer’ rice—an undesirable element of 
the crop; but the bobolink in its relations to the rice field has not a 
single redeeming trait. What aggravates the case is the fact that the 
birds do not need the rice. There is no reason to suppose that if rice 
culture were entirely abandoned there would be any diminution in the 
number of bobolinks. It is altogether probable that if this source of 
food were withdrawn there would be enough other seed-bearing plants 
to supply their needs. Bird fogd is almost always superabundant. 
It is only under very exceptional circumstances that birds suffer 
seriously from hunger. : 
What, then, shall we say of the bobolink? In the life of the writer 
this bird is associated with some of the happiest and brightest hours of 
childhood, youth, and maturity. A sunny June morning in rural New 
England would hardly be complete without the bubbling, gushing, 
rollicking melody of the bobolink in the mowing lot. But hard 
