14 FOOD OF BOBOLINK, BLACKBIEDS, AND GEACKLES. 



C. J. Maynard speaks of its feeding in Pennsylvania on a somewhat 

 peculiar grass which springs up after the wheat is harvested and affords 

 abundant food for them during the latter part of October/ 



Dr. Warren also confines himself to its feeding habits in Pennsyl- 

 vania. He says: 



The food of these birds during their spring sojourn in Pennsylvania is composed 

 chiefly of different kinds of terrestrial insects, also the seeds of various weeds, grasses, 

 etc. I have examined the stomach contents of twenty-seven Bobolinks * * * 

 and found that eighteen had fed exclusively on beetles, larvse, ants and a few earth- 

 worms; five, in addition to insects and larvte, showed small seeds, and particles of 

 green vegetable materials, apparently leaves of plants; the four remaining birds 

 revealed only small black and yellow colored seeds. After the breeding season the 

 Eeedbirds * * * about the middle of August, again make their appearance in 

 our meado-ws and grainlields. At this time, although various forms of insects are 

 abundant, they subsist almost entirely on a vegetable diet. They visit the cornfields 

 and * * * prey to a more or less extent on the corn ; * * * they tear open 

 the tops of the husk and eat the milky grain. Fields of Hungarian grass are resorted 

 to and the seed eagerly devoured. The different iseeds of weeds and grasses which 

 grow so luxuriantly in the marshy swamps and meadows are likewise fed upon with 

 avidity.^ 



In these statements the bird's destructiveness in the South is not 

 considered; but it has been well understood for a long time. iVIark 

 Catcsby, whose work on the natural history" of Carolina contains the 

 first published general account of the birds of this country, says: 



In the beginning of September, while the Grain of Rice is yet soft and milky, 

 innumera1)le Flights of these Birds arrive from some remote Parts, to the great detri- 

 ment of the inhabitants. Anno 1724, an Inhabitant near Ashley river hati forty 

 acres of Rice so devoured ]»y them, that he was in doubt, whether what they had 

 left, was worth the expense of gatliering in. 



They are esteemed in Carolina the greatest delicacy of all other Birds. AVhen they 

 first arrive, they are lean, but in a few day.s become so excessive fat, that tliey &y 

 sluggishly and with dilficulty; and when sliot, frequently l)reak with the fall. They 

 continue about three weeks, and retire by that time Rice begins to liarden.' 



Wilson nays these bird.s are looked upon by the careful planter as a 

 devouring scourge, and worse than a plague of locusts. In disputing 

 the assertion tliat they were unknown in this part of the continent 

 previous to the introduction of rice plantations he states that the 

 country produces an abundance of food of which they are no less fond, 

 including insects of various kinds, grubs, Ma3'-flies, and caterpilhirs, 

 young ears of Indian corn, and seeds of wild rice [Zizairia aquatica). 

 He believes, however, that the introduction of rice, and more particu- 

 larly the progress of agriculture, in this part of America has grcatl}' 

 increased their numbers by nuiltiplying their sources of subsistence 

 fiftyfold within the same extent of country.* 



'Birds of Eastern N. A., p. 1.31, 1881. 

 "Birds of Pa., revised ed., p. 207, 1890. 

 •''Natural History of (^uoHna, Vol. I, p. 14, 17.S1. 

 *Am. Ornith., EdiMlun-h .-d., Vol. I, p. 219, 1831. 



