BOBOLINK. 239 



where about, apparently with little thought in the matter, there is little or nothing to 

 focus attention in one spot more than another in the waving grass."* 



The nest is always a slight structure, composed entirely of grasses and flush with 

 the ground. The eggs, four to five in number, are grayish- white, sometimes with a 

 greenish or brownish hue, and the whole surface is blotched with chocolate-brown and 

 with other indistinct shell-markings. The female constructs the nest alone and she 

 hatches also the eggs without the assistance of the always merry and frolicking male, 

 and she also feeds the young until they are able to leave the nest. In his hilarity and 

 song, especially when flying easily and gracefully over the grassy plain, or when sitting 

 on a slender weed-stem with ruffled plumage, the male is a picture of beauty and poetry. 

 But this changes suddenly when the young leave the nest and parental responsibilities 

 increase. The song is less and less frequently heard. After a while, when the young 

 are able to fly, it ceases entirely. A sudden change takes place in the appearance as 

 w^ell as in the habits of the males. The merry players and happy musicians "throw off 

 their black dominos, the medley ceases, and the carnival is over." The plumage of con- 

 trasting black, white, and buff", so conspicuous and striking, changes with almost instant 

 rapidity into a brownish-gray, until they are no longer distinguishable either by plumage 

 or note, from their mates and young.** 



In the Northern States the Bobolink is one of the most beneficial of all our birds. 

 Its food, from the time of its arrival until its departure, consists almost entirely of all 

 kinds of noxious insects, especially of grasshoppers. When by the first of July the meadows 

 are mown, large numbers of Bobolinks run over the half dry grass in pursuit of insects. 

 When the grasshoppers, crickets, moths, and beetles do no longer find food and hiding 

 places in the mown meadows, they move into the neighboring fields of barley in order 

 to continue their ravages ; but the Bobolinks are following them instantly. I have seen 

 many hundreds of these birds in the barley fields by the middle of July, and all were 

 hunting insects. At this time we are scarcely able to recognize our beautiful songsters 

 of May and June. They are strange in their appearance and strange in their ways and 

 habits. They do not fly and rollick around any longer, and they are also rather timid. 

 In large flocks they move about in the locality, disappearing entirely by the end of July 

 from their breeding haunts. I have seen large flocks in the reeds and sedges of the great 

 Horicon and Koshkonong Marshes in southern Wisconsin early in August. At the same 

 time they appear in the marshes of the Delaware River. They are now not any longer 

 known as the Bobolinks, but have become the "Reed-birds." Late in August or early in 

 September they leave the northern parts of the country, travelling mostly by night to 

 elude observation. "Some still dark night you may know that the play is played out, 

 hearing the cbink-link-ink from the upper air as the birds speed on; that is the tinkle 

 of the bell that rings the curtain down on the last act."* 



A few weeks later they swarm in the rice plantations of South Carolina and 

 Louisiana. Having become exceedingly fat on the different kinds of seeds, they are killed 

 in immense numbers by sportsmen for the table of the epicure. They are now known 



» "New England Bird-life." By W. A. Stearns and Dr. Elliott Cones. Vol. I, p. 294. 



** For further information I refer the reader to Mr. Frank Chapman's article "On the Changes of Plumage in the 

 Bobolink." The Auk. Vol. VII, 1890, p. 120—124, 



