^ORTH AMERICA 
oryza zizania are about ripening; yet in my opinion 
there are fome ftrong circumftances which feem to 
operate againft fuch a conjecture, though generally 
believed. 
In the Ipringj about the middle of May, the 
black pied rice bird (which is called the male) ap- 
pears in Pennfylvania ; at that time the great yel- 
low ephemera, called May fly, and a fpecies of 
locufta appear in incredible multitudes, the favorite 
delicious food of thefe birds, when they are fpright- 
ly, vociferous, and pleafingly tuneful. 
When I was at St. Auguftine, in E. Florida, in 
the beginning of April, the fame fpecies of grafs- 
hoppers were in multitudes on the fields and com- 
mons about the town ; when great flights of thefe 
male rice birds fuddenly arrived from the South, 
which by feeding on thefe infers became extremely 
fat and delicious : they continued here two or three 
weeks, until their food became fcarce, w'hen they 
difappeared, I fuppofe purfuing their journey North 
after the locufta and ephemera ; there were a few 
of the yellow kind, or true rice bird, to be feen 
amongft them. Now thefe pied rice birds feem 
to obferve the fame order and time in their migra- 
tions Northerly, with the other fpring birds of paf- 
fage, and are undoubtedly on their way to their 
breeding place; but then there are no females with 
them, at leaft not one to ten thoufand of the male 
colour, which cannot be fuppofed to be a fufficient 
number to pair and breed by. Being in Charlefton 
in the month of June, I obferved at a gentleman’s 
door, a cage full of rice birds, that is of the yellow 
or female colour, who were very merry and vo- 
cife roils, having the fame variable muftc with the 
U 4 pied 
