16 FOOD OF BOBOLINK, BLACKBIKDS, AND GRACKLES. 



the field. We have tried every plan to keep these pests off our crop at less expense 

 and manual labor than we now incur, and have been unsuccessful. Our present 

 mode is expensive, imperfect and thoroughly unsatisfactory, yet it is the best we 

 can do. 



Mr. R. Joseph Lowndes, of Annandale, S. C, in writing of the bob- 

 olink and redwing, says: 



I think I am in boim^ds when I say that one-fourth, if not one-third of the [rice] 

 crop of this river [the Santee] is destroyed by birds from the time the seed is put 

 into the land till the crops are threshed out and put in the barns — I shoot out about 

 100 kegs of powder every September, with a fair quantity of shot, say 30 to 50 bags, 

 and have killed as high as 150 dozen in a day. In the bird season it takes every 

 man and boy on the plantation to mind these birds. This work has to go on from 

 daylight till dark in any and all weathers and at great expense for six weeks in the 

 fall before the rice is ripe enough for the sickle, and then on till we can get it out of 

 the fields. These birds, if not carefully minded, will utterly destroy a crop of rice 

 in two or three days. 



Mr. A. X. Lucas, of McClellanville, S. C, says: 



The annual depredations of the birds are in my opinion equal in this section to the 

 value of the rent of the land — to say nothing of the expense of minding the birds. 



Many similar reports of the bobolink's damage to rice have been 

 received by the Biological Surve}^ from Southern rice growers. So 

 destructive are the attacks of these birds that it is necessarj^ to plant 

 the rice previous to their coming in the spring, so that it can be under 

 water when thc}^ arrive, and then to plant another lot when they have 

 passed on to the north. This method is adopted not only to avoid the 

 full extent of the ravages of the birds in the spring, but also that the 

 tirst lot ma}' mature in the fall before the birds return, and the second 

 after they have passed on to their winter home. But it frequently 

 happens that one of the crops is ' in the milk ' when the birds arrive 

 in August, in which case it is almost impossible to save it from total 

 destruction. 



Mr. Allen C. Zard, of White Hill, S. C, says that when rice is so 

 planted as to ""meet the birds,' that is, to be in just the right stage of 

 maturity when thej' arrive, and the}' come in full force, thc}^ will 

 destroy the whole crop in spite of powder and shot or anj'thing else. 



As a sample of actual loss, the following statement, furnished by 

 Colonel Screven, gives his account with the bobolink at Savannah, Ga., 

 for the year 1S85: 



Cost of ammunition ^5245. 50 



Wages of bird minders 300. 00 



Rice destroyed, say 400 bushels 500. 00 



$1, 045. 50 



Colonel Screven cultivated in that j'car 465 acres of tidal land, so 



that he has estimated a loss of less than 1 bushel of rice to the acre, 



while most of the rice growers estimate the loss at from 4 to 5 bushels. 



