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The Bobolink 
To this it may be answered that the Bobolink is not truly a western 
bird. We have seen that, probably, he has settled in the far West 
within recent years only. So, in returning to his winter quarters, - 
he retraces his steps, as it were, going back over the same country 
through which his ancestors gradually extended their range westward, 
until he strikes the traditional southward path. 
Thus the Bobolink gives us an indication of how birds learn to 
travel regularly, season after season, between their winter and summer 
resorts. The route is learned little by little, as the birds gradually 
widen their range ; and the birds go back by the 
habits** way they came. This habit appears to be inherited, to 
be passed on from generation to generation ; and 
when we remember that birds have been migrating for thousands of 
years, it gives us some clue to the manner in which so great a journey 
as the Bobolink’s may have been developed. 
After leaving Florida, the Bobolink “grand trunk line” appears to 
have three branches. One leads to Yucatan and thence southward along 
the eastern coast of Central America; one crosses over Cuba to Jamaica; 
and one goes eastward to Porto Rico, and thence southward through 
the Lesser Antilles. 
The Jamaica route is apparently the most popular. Gosse, in his 
“Birds of Jamaica,” tells us that vast numbers of Bobolinks arrive in that 
island in October and remain until early November. Fresh from the 
rice-fields of our Southern States, they are extremely fat, and are known 
as Butter-birds, and many are killed for food. 
From Jamaica Bobolink must cross 400 miles of open sea to reach 
northern South America — a journey which he doubtless makes in one 
night’s flight ; and, having reached the mainland, he probably follows 
along the eastern slope of the Andes to the treeless 
Winter Life region toward which he has been traveling for at least 
three months. Here Bobolink passes the next five 
months, with no family cares, and nothing to do but eat and be merry. 
He spends, therefore, almost twice as much time in his winter home 
as in his summer one. 
Just when the northward journey is begun, no one seems to know. 
Probably late in March, for Gosse writes that Bobolinks reach Jamaica 
in April; about the 26th of that month they arrive in northern Florida, 
and reach their particular meadow or pasture in the Middle and New 
England States during the first week in May with as much regularity 
as if they had traveled eight instead of eight thousand miles since leav- 
ing it. 
Before we speak of the nest Bobolink has come so far to make, let 
us learn something of his traveling suits. 
When Bobolink comes to us in May, he is wearing his wedding-dress 
of black and buff, and very attractive it is. His wife, however, is quite 
