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FrRTIIKK Ol’.SKRVATIOxNS OX MINNESOTA 151RDS: 
THE BOBOLINK. 
This dandy amongst birds — a favorite of l)ird lovers and sub- 
ject of many a song- and poem — is a common and welcome summer 
resident here, hlling the fields with drunken melody, while his 
more modestly-colored mate is sitting- quietly on her nest, well 
hidden in grass or clover. So familiar to all is this songster that 
with the above excellent illustration before us. no verbal descrip- 
tion is necessary. 
The beauty and song of the male bird are l)Ut transient qual- 
ities, for after the breeding season, he loses his tine clothes, be- 
comes dull olive-colored, streaked with black, like the female and 
young, and, in the fall. Hocks southward to wild rice marshes and 
cultivated rice helds, wintering in South America. At night one 
frequently realizes flocks of these birds are passing, by hearing 
their metallic “Chink" in the darkened sky above. As ‘Teed bird” 
and “rice bird,” they find their way into the markets of the East 
and South, fattened by voracious feeding in the rice fields. ATiile 
with us in the North, they eat large numbers of injurious insects. 
