RICE BUNTING. I og 



The winter residence of this species I suppose to be from 

 Mexico to the mouth of the Amazon, from whence, in hosts 

 innumerable, they regularly issue every spring ; perhaps to 

 both hemispheres, extending their migrations northerly, as 

 far as the banks of the Illinois, and the shores of the St 

 Lawrence. Could the fact be ascertained, which has been 

 asserted by some writers, that the emigration of these birds 

 was altogether unknown in this part of the continent previous 

 to the introduction of rice plantations, it would certainly be 

 interesting. Yet, why should these migrations reach at least 

 a thousand miles beyond those places where rice is now 

 planted ; and this, not in occasional excursions, but regularly 

 to breed and rear their young, where rice never was, and 

 probably never will be, cultivated ? Their so recent arrival on 

 this part of the continent, I believe to be altogether imaginary, 

 because, though there were not a single grain of rice cultivated 

 within the United States, the country produces an exuberance 

 of food of which they are no less fond. Insects of various 

 kinds, grubs, Mayflies, and caterpillars, the young ears of 

 Indian-corn, and the seed of the wild oats, or, as it is called 

 in Pennsylvania, reeds (the Zhania aquatica of Linnaeus), 

 which grows in prodigious abundance along the marshy shores 

 of our large rivers, furnish, not only them, but millions of 

 rail, with a delicious subsistence for several weeks. I do not 

 doubt, however, that the introduction of rice, but more par- 

 ticularly the progress of agriculture, in this part of America, 

 has greatly increased their numbers, by multiplying their 

 sources of subsistence fiftyfold within the same extent of 

 country. 



In the month of April, or very early in May, the rice bunt- 

 While you are listening, the whole flock simultaneously ceases, which 

 appears equally extraordinary. This curious exhibition takes place every 

 time the flock has alighted on a tree. 



Another curious fact mentioned by this gentleman is, that during their 

 spring migrations eastward, they fly mostly at night ; whereas, in 

 autumn, when they are returning southward, their flight is diurnal. — Ed. 



