THE BOBOLINK. 21 



caterpillars, except 3 percent of predaceous beetles (Carabidee) in 

 one storaach and 15 percent of parasitic Hymenoptera (Ichneumonidfe) 

 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 {Rumex). 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 immediatel}'^ 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 food were withdrawn there would be enough other seed-bearing plants 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 food 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 



