Sept. 2^, igooj 
FOREST AND STREAM? 
223 
feel de cole Come creepy, creepy 'long on iay bau'/au', on. 
my foots all 'lone dere in de storms ;an' <3e woWs alt 
'roun'. 
"Den, I'll sing de strong medicine song an' say 
by'm'by I'll shoots all dat woKs I'll can 'fore I'll go 
anyhow, an' de wolfs he'll come li't' closer all de time. 
Den de big one he'll joraps quicic at me 'fore I'll looks 
'ronn' most. I'll jump out de way an' shoots dat one 
an' all de res' de wolfs he'll eat him up, mos' 'fore he'll 
got done hollerin', an' den de res' dey'U come close up 
un' set in de snow an' look at me with his greeny ej'es 
an' I'll nodiss dat de light come HT bit in de eas'. 
■"Well, seh, I'll t'ought now I'll sliqot good deal an' de 
light goin' lo mek de wolfs 'fraid, an' by'm'by ril git 
away an' go on lo de shack. 
".So den I'll shout t'ree, four time, quick, an' de live 
woh' lie'll light for de chance for eat de dead one, an' 
ur-n 1 il heard somebody holler some, 'Who-o-o-ee!' lak 
dal in de storms, an' I'll hojler too, for I'll know dat'll 
be de Injun holler lo me. 
"I'll shoot de gun an' holier plenty an' den de wolfs 
Ik'II look 'roun' over his sho'l'er ah' run away in dc 
storms ati' den lots de Injun man holler. 
"Well, seh, I'll been so cole an' so tire dat I'll fall 
down in de snow an' can't holler den, an' I'll shoots de 
gun again up in de sky air' in li'l' time dere'll comes 
five, ten Injun, good deal Injun mans, an' he'll bring me 
to de teepee an' take 'long de gun. 
"By'm'by I'll git warm an' all right an' git de hot 
dririk an' de grub an' go to de sleep. 
"So den I'll stay by dfs Injuns 'bout mebbe two week 
till I'll seen de squaw dere an'. I'll mek up my min' for 
got marry an' stay home when de storm come. Yessir, 
an" dal's how yon fin' me de marry mans irow, hey, 
Lil-e-o-tah? 
The silent little Avoman on the other side of the fire 
east her eyes down and I thought that there was just 
a ghost of a smale flitting across her dark face for the 
space of a wink; it might have been imagination, though. 
"Yessir, dat'll been a bad time for Jo for li'l' while, 
but, I'll dunno. I'll guess dat's all right, anyhow, for 
LJl-e-o-tah she'll been a pretty good li'l' gal for" 
Slam! 
The squaw had playfully hurled a soft fur robe' across 
the teepee and completely buried Jo, his pipe and his 
conrpliments in its smothery folds, from which he 
emerged later chuckling in his guttural way as he re- 
filled his pipe. A little while afterward there were three 
silent forms rolled up in the furs. Jo and his squaw sleep- 
ing as nomads can under any and all conditions., while 
1 looked up at the blur of light that outlined the smoke 
hole in the teepee top and waited for the roar of the 
storm to bring sleep to me also. 
The last thing I remember was a faint little cry that 
sounded like a child, then a chanted, crooning" song 
droned in a strange tongue as the Indian woman lulled 
the baby to rest again — truly a strange thing to hear there 
with the wild, fierce song of "the storm roaring thi'ough 
the air and filling it just outside the walls of a skin lodge. 
El Comancho. 
Bobolinks and Rice Birds. 
The Biological Suryey of the Department of Agricul- 
ture has just issued an interesting paper on the "Food 
of the Bobolink, Blackbirds and Grackles," by the As- 
sistant Biologist, Mr. F. E. L. Beal. The subject is one 
of unusual interest, for the birds in question are well 
known to almost every one, and some of them at least 
are regarded in certain . parts of the country with de- 
testation on account of the damage which they do to 
certain crops. . 
The oriole is reprobated for its injury to the fruit crop, 
thq blackbird for the harm that it works in the grain 
fields of the upper Mississippi Valley, while under his 
name of rice bird the bobolink is deemed a curse by the 
rice planters of the South. 
The family to which the birds in question belong is one 
of great economic importance. It includes the bobo- 
link, ineadow larks, orioles, blackbirds, grackles and 
cowbirds, species differing widely in appearance and in 
many of their habits. They destroy many noxious iti- 
sects and some useful ones, many harmful weed seeds 
and a certain amount of grain. The eflfort of Mr. Beal's 
paper is to determine from the great amount of material 
brought together by the Biological Survey what is the 
proportion of good and what of harm done by the spe- 
cies under consideration. The reports on the food of 
The meadow lark and Baltimore oriole have appeared in 
eai-lier publications of the Department. This paper is 
based on an examination, of 4,800 bird stomachs. 
It has often been remarked that the fruit grower who 
sees with his own eyes a bird take a cherry is likely to be 
convinced that the bird has injured him and should be 
destroyed, taking not at all into account all the good 
whicli it may do by a destruction of insects which he 
<Ioes not witness. Moreover, the observations of the 
average man are by no means always to be trusted. If 
he sees crows or blackbirds walking about in his newly 
planted field he is extremely likely to believe that they 
are eating or pulling up the grain^ while as a matter o"f 
[act they may be hard at work protecting it by destroy- 
ing the grubs and other insetts which themselves would 
feed upon it. 
Mr. Beal concludes that while the investigation of the 
food of blackbirds by an examination of the stomach 
c ontents does in a measure confirm the popular idea of 
iheir grain-eating propensities, it shows also that during 
the season when grain is not accessible these birds de- 
str(,y immense quantities of the seeds of harmful weeds, 
.ind tliat during the Avhole of the warmer portion of the 
year- even when grain is easily obtained — ^they devour 
a great number of noxious insects. 
On the other hand, it is rather startling to learn that 
of all these birds the bobolink eats the least grain, the 
cedwiug the next, and then in order the cowbird, rusty 
graokle, yellowhead, crow-black^bird, boat-tail grackle. 
Brewer's blackbird and the California redwing. The first 
two s[)ccic5 are those against which the chief complaint 
has been made, notwithstanding they are tlie ones that 
eat the least grain. 
Attention is called to the fact that in many parts of 
the country the natural autumn food supply of bobolink 
and blackbird has been in a measure cut oti by the drain- 
ing and bringing under cultivation of large areas. Where 
once grew vast fields of wild rice which furnished food 
to myriads of birds, now are pastures, hay meadows or 
grain fields, and the birds turn to the new food supply. 
No one of the birds of the Northern States is more 
familiar or better loved than the bobolink, and its great 
decrease within the past three years has been univer- 
sally lamented. But on tlie other hand, these birds, as 
Wilson says, are looked upon by the careful planter as a 
devouring- scourge and worse than a plague of locusts. 
We quote what Mr. Beal writes of the havoc' wrought 
by the. bobolink of the North when it becomes the rice 
bird of tlie South. He says: 
_ It IS estimated that the bobolinks, with a little help 
froin the redwings, cause an annual loss of $2,000,000 to 
the rice growers of the South.' Much of this loss is 
indirect, arising from the necessity of maintaining a corps 
of men and boys as "bird minders," who patrol the fields 
from morning till night, firing guns or cracking whips 
to frighten the birds from tlie ripening crop. Even then 
it is impossible to save all the rice, and it often happens 
that some acres on the borders of the uncultivated marsh 
where the birds resoit are so badly eaten that they are 
not worth harvesting. 
Asa rule, the shooting is only to frighten the birds, as 
the use of shot would cause as mucli harm to the rice as 
is doiie by the birds. The amount of powder consumed 
in this way is enormous. It is not uncommon to use 
100 pounds per annum, and one planter who cidtivates 
a large plantation uses 2,500 pouilds in. the course of a 
year. 
Col. John Screven, of Savannah, Ga., in writing of the 
ravages of the ricebird (boblink), says: 
Its invasions are ruinous to Relets on whicli its flocks max settle, 
especially if the grain is in palatable condition, and in fields ad- 
jacent to marshes convenient for ambush or retreat. Eird minders, 
armed with muskets and shotguns, endeavor by dischai-ges of 
blank cartridges to keep the birds alarmed and to drive them from 
the field. Small shot are also fired among them, and incredible 
numbers are killed; but all such efforts will not prevent great waste' 
of grain, amounting lo a loss of large portions of a field— some- 
times, indeed, to its entire loss. The voracity of the birds seems 
so intense that fear is secondary to it, and they fly, when 
alarmed, from one portion of the field to another, very little out 
of gunshot, and immediately settle down to their banquet * » * 
The preventives in use against the ravages of the ricebirds have 
been already suggested, but they are palliative only, applied at 
great expense, and without commensurate results. * * * 
short, no effort yet tried consistent with reasonable economy will 
drive the ricebird from the field or afiford any well-founded promise 
of their reduction to harmless numbers. 
A more specific case of damage is that of a field men- 
tioned by Mr. J. A. Hayes, Jr., of Savannah, Ga., which 
consisted of 125 acres of rice that matured when birds 
were most plentiful, and which, in spite of eighteen bird 
minders and eleven half kegs of gunpowder, yielded 
only eighteen bushels per- acre of inferior rice, although 
it had been estimated to yield forty-five bushels. 
Capt. William Miles Hazzard, of Annandale. S. C, 
says : 
During the nights of Aug. 21, 22, 23 and 24 millions of these 
birds make their appearance and settle in the rice fields. From 
Aug. 21 to Sept. 25 our every effort is to save the crop. Men, 
bo)'s and women are posted with guns and ammunition to every 
lour or five acres, and shoot daily an average of about one quart 
of gunpowder to the gun. This firing commences at first dawn 
ot day, and is kept up until sunset. After all this expense and 
trouble our loss of rice per acre seldom falls under five bushels, 
and It from any cause there is a check to the crop during its 
growth which prevents the grain from being hard, but in a milky 
condition, the destruction of the rice is complete— not paying to 
cut and bring out of 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 Aanandale, S. C, in writ- 
ing of the bobolink and redwing, says: 
1 thinJc I am in bounds 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 m the barns— t shoot out about 100 kegs of 
powder every September, with a fair quantitv of shot, sav 30 to 
oO bags, and have killed as high as 150 dozen in a day. "In the 
bird season it takes every man and bov 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 
tan belore the rice is ripe enough for the sickle, and then on till 
we get It out of the fields. These birds, if not carefully itiinded, 
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 mv opinion equal 
in this section to the value of the rent of tlie land, to sav 
nothing of the expense of minding the birds. 
Many similar reports of the bobolink's damage to rice 
have been received by the Biological Survey from South- 
ern nee growers. So destructive are the attacks of these 
birds that it is necessary to plant the rice previous to their 
coming in the spring, so that it can be under water when 
they arrive, and then to plant another lot when thev 
have passed on to the North. This method is adopted 
not on'}' to avoid the lull extent of the ravages of the 
birds in the spring, but also that the first lot may mature 
in the fall before the birds return and the second after 
they have passed on to their winter home. But it fre- 
quently 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 
nee is so planted as to "meet the birds"— that is, to be 
in just the right stage of maturity when they arrive, and 
they come m full force, they will destroy the whole crop 
in spite of powder and shot or anything else. 
As a sample of actual loss, the following statement, fur- 
nished bv Col. Screven, gives his account with the bobo- 
link at Savannah. Ga., for the year 1885: 
Cost of ammunition ca 
Wages of bird minders 300* 00 
Rice destroyed, say 400 bushels '..'.'.'.'.'.[', 50o!oO 
$1,045.50 
Col. Screven cultivated in that year 465 acres of tidal 
land, so that he has estimated a loss of less than one 
bu.shel of rice to the acre, while most of the rice grow- 
ers estimate the loss at from four to five bushels. 
Capt. Hazzard states that in cultivating from 1,200 to 
'Report of Department o£ Agriculture for 18S6, p. 247, 
1,400 acres of rice he has paid as raueh as $1,000 for 
bird minding in one spring. 
In addition to the use of tirearnis, vanou.s other metli 
ods of avoiding the ravages of the ricebirds have been 
tried, but with, at best, indifferent success. To prevent 
the birds from pulling up the sprouted seed in spring the 
device of coating it with coal tar has been used, as is 
effectively practiced in the case of corn. But the method 
of rice cultui'e is very different from that of corn. As 
soon as the rice is sown it is covered with water, which 
remains on the field until the germination of the seed, 
a period of variable length. The soaking in water so 
affects the tar coating that it no longer protects the 
gnaiti, and when the water is withdrawn th ^ birds at once 
attack the seed. Moreover, it is stated by Capt. Hazzard 
that some birds, including the ricebird, hull the grain 
before eating it, an assertion apparently corroborated by 
the absence of hulls in the bobolink stomachs examined 
that contained rice. ( When seeds are, swallowed by 
birds, the hulls usally remain longer in the stomtchs 
I ban the kernels.) Ilence. on Jhis account also the tar 
coating would probably have no preventive effect. An 
other method is to attach small flags to stakes or to fly 
kites over the fields. Looking glasses have also beea sus- 
pended in the same way, but all the«e devices soon cease 
to be effective. Placing pieces of refuse meat oe poles 
jtbout the fields to attract the buzzards has been tried; 
the ricebirds mistelvc the buzzards for hawks and avoid 
the fields over which they are flying. But the scheme 
is effective only for a short tii-ne,, as the birds '^obn be- 
come accustomed to the presenaa of the buzzards and 
pay no further attention to them. 
These facts and figures are presented for the considera 
tion of the people of the Northern States, to whom the 
name "bobolink" siiggests only poetry and sentiment, 
and by whom the birds themselves are looked upon as 
alinost sacred, and are rigidly protected. It is not prob- 
able that any farmer in the North will for a moment 
contend that he receives from the bobolinks that nest 
upon his farm so much benefit that he would be willing 
in return to share the losses inflicted upon his Southern 
brothers by the birds. 
Insect pests ravage the crops of the whole country. 
No section, is exempt from, damage, Each crop has its 
destroyers, against which human energy and science 
must contend with whatever success they may, and in 
fnost cases some eft'ectual remedy has been devised. But 
the case of the attacks of the bobolink upon the rice 
crop of the Souj;h is unique and is probably the result 
of a peculiar combination of causes. 
As before stated, these birds are inhabitants of open 
fields; meadows and prairies form their ideal breeding 
grounds. So much do they avoid woods and groves that 
they will seldom nest in a well-grown orchard, even if 
other accompaniments are agreeable. At the time Amer- 
ica y/as first settled, the whole northeastern part of the 
country must have presented but few localities, and those 
i:if limited area, suited to their wants. When the great 
forests of New England and New York were cleared 
away and transformed into farms with extensive areas of 
mowing land intersected with springs and brooks, the 
bobolinks were not slow to avail themselves of these new 
opportunities and soon colonized the whole. At the same 
time the southeastern coast region was also brought 
under cultivation, and the tidal and river lands were de- 
voted to the raising of rice, thus furnishing the food 
needed for the augmented numbers, as noted by Wilson. 
As settlement, with its attendant clearing away of forests, 
spread westward, suitable nesting areas were continually 
added to those already created, and the birds had abun- 
dant opportunity for great increase in numbers. 
Since the bobolinks pass the winter in South America, 
the southern coast of Florida naturally presents to most 
of them the point of departure for the long sea flight to 
their winter homes. Before reaching this spot, how- 
ever, they stop to rest and feed in the rice fields of the 
Southeast, where they remain and recruit their exhausted 
energies preparatory to final migration. A small con- 
tingent, representing those that have nested in the ex- 
treme western portion of their range, migrate directly 
down the Mississippi Valley to the rice fields of Louisi- 
ana. When the birds arrive from the North they are in 
poor condition, having been debiHtated by the exertion 
of reproduction, but they at once begin to recuperate 
with the abundant food furnished by the rice, soon be- 
come very fat, and, after a few weeks' rest, are able to 
safely resume the southern journey. On the return mi- 
gration the conditions are similar; the birds arrive from 
their winter home tired out with their long flight, and 
find the fields either newly sown with the rice or else 
with the tender blade just appearing- above the ground. " 
In each case there is an abundant supply of food, and 
they are soon in condition to pursue the journey to their 
northern breeding ground. 
Here we see the two causes which have combined to 
bring about all the trouble between the rice planters and 
the bobolinks: (i) The fact that the species has prob- 
ably mticli increased through the extension of its north- 
ern breeding ground, and (2) the fact that the rice fields 
he directly m the path of migration and afford a con- 
venient place for rest- ;;,fid recuperation before and after 
the flight across the se,!. It is almost certain that if the 
rice fields \vere far outi>ide of the lines of migration they 
would ne^ er be molested. It is probable that long before 
.•Vmerica was discovered the bobolinks gathered in the 
inarshes on the Southeastern coast and fed upon wild 
rice and other wild pl?/nts previous to departm-e for their 
winter home. Cultivation of the land introduced a more 
abundant supply of food in the South just at the time 
It afforded a great ir rrease in nesting area in the North, 
A Vcfmont "Wolf Story. 
Ferrisburgh, Vt., Sept, 7.— A strange story comes from 
Waitsfield, m thia State; it says that "John Carey, of 
Waitsfield, shot tfiree wolves recently and obtained $36 
in bounty at the town clerk's office. The wolves re- 
sembled a dog v€ffy closely, excepting that they each had 
but four toes on a paw, and the old wolf had pointed ears." 
It is hard to beKeve that they were wolves. 
My boy ard bis two comrades shot six ducks on Sept. 
I. This war as well as any one did whom I have heard 
of. and show vhat ^ iir duck shooting has dwindled to. 
R. E, R. 
