150 
EEAUTIFUL BIEDS. 
lined with finer materials ; the eggs, five in number, 
are dull hluish white, spotted with blackish. 
In July, when the young are reared, these Eice- 
Buntings congregate in multitudes of incredible mag- 
nitude, and commence their extensive devastations. 
They plunder the fields of grain ; they swarm about 
seed-beds, alighting in thousands, bearing down the 
stems with their weight, and feeding on the ripe seeds. 
They progress towards the Southern States, and in 
September they make their appearance in Carolina in 
countless myriads, spreading over the rice-fields, and 
devouring the grain while yet soft and milky; and 
thus they often ruin acres of this produce. Trom the 
time of their assembling together in July, to September, 
the gun thins their numbers ; thousands are killed for 
the markets, their fiesh being esteemed quite a deli- 
cacy. Towards the end of October, before the rice- 
crop is gathered in, the troops have made their appear- 
ance in Cuba and Jamaica; where they feed on the 
seeds of the guinea-grass, and where the birds, being 
very fat, are in great demand for the table. 
This bird, called also the Eice-Troopial, is subject 
to a double yearly moult and change of colouring. 
The male, in his spring dress, has the head, fore-part 
of the back, shoulders, wings, and tail, together with 
the whole of the under plumage, black, passing on the 
middle of the back into greyish; scapulars, rump, 
and upper tail-coverts white ; back of the neck ochre 
yellow. Bill, bluish black ; but in the autumn pale 
flesh-colour, as in the female and young male. The 
feathers of the tail are sharp at the end, as in the 
Woodpecker. 
