98 The Bobolink 



America, the larger portion of them entered the United 

 States by the way of Florida; the remainder, especially 

 those occupying the western portion of the country, 

 came in by the way of the Mississippi valley. In former 

 times the Atlantic coast furnished the bobolinks with 

 plenty of natural food, such as weed-seeds and wild 

 rice. This was the condition in the latter part of the 

 seventeenth century, when the bobolink was beloved 

 by the people of the North and South aUke. Mean- 

 while two conditions were slowly being brought about : 

 meadow lands were increasing year by year in the North, 

 and the growing of rice in the South was fast becoming 

 a vast industry. The bobolinks now found beautiful 

 nesting fields in the North, and, directly in the line of 

 their old migration route, man was furnishing a bounti- 

 ful supply of food in the way of the young rice, just 

 beginning to appear above the ground. Another factor 

 which should not be overlooked is, that, after the 

 bobolinks' long sea journey, they are naturally exhausted 

 upon reaching the Southern States, and so stop for a 

 little period before they begin the long northern 

 journey to their summer homes. This enforced rest 

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

 expense of the planter, they recuperate very rapidly. 

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

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



