4 2 
Chapman on the Winter Distribution of the Bobolink. [January 
Tamaica, distant now only eighty miles, nearer indeed than are 
the Caymans from this island. 
The Jamaican records are, in comparison to many of those 
already cited, detailed and exceedingly satisfactory ; Gosse* 
reports the arrival in October of vast numbers of Bobolinks which 
remain until early November. They feed on the seeds of the 
‘ guinea grass,’ are called ‘ Butter-birds,’ and their flesh is 
highly esteemed. March’s J notes coincide with those of Gosse, 
but he says the birds remain only for a few days. There is a 
specimen in the American Museum taken by this collector label- 
led “Spanish Town, $ Sep. 25, 1865.” A further Jamaican 
record of a female taken in October, is given by Sclater. j: 
After leaving Jamaica the route, considered as a regular high- 
way of migration, is perhaps the most interesting and remarkable 
of any chosen by our migratory land birds, for at no other time 
during their entire journey from north to south, or vice versa , 
are they necessarily so far from land, unless driven from their 
course by storms or adverse winds. The South American coast 
is now distant four hundred miles, the way unmarked by islet, 
shoal, or reef. This is to the south ; to the southwest, leading to 
the Costa Rican coast, are two or three small reefs or islands 
which may tempt some of our birds to follow this course while 
others take the more direct route to South America. Nor can 
we doubt their ability to perform without resting this more ex- 
tended flight, for Darwin§ found a Bobolink in the Galapagoes, 
distant nearly six hundred miles from the nearest mainland. 
Further, the records from northern South America apparently 
indicate that some birds appear directly upon the coast instead of 
entering this country by way of Panama or Trinidad. Com- 
mencing at the westward these records are as follows : In the 
British Museum Catalogue || specimens are cited from Chepo and 
Paraiso on Panama; Sclater mentions a specimen from Sta. 
Martha, and referring again to the British Museum Catalogue, we 
find specimens mentioned from Caracas and Cayenne. Salvin** 
* Birds of Jamaica, 1847, p. 229. 
t Proc. Phil. Acad. Sc., 1863, p. 299. 
t P. Z. S., 1861, p. 74. % 
§ Voyage of the Beagle, 1841, Vol. Ill, p. 106. 
|| Cat. Brit. Mus., XI, p. 332. 
H Cat. Am. Birds, 1862, p. 134. 
** Ibis, 1885, p. 218. 
1890.] 
Chapman on the Winter Distribution of the Bobolink. 
43 
f: gives the bird from British Guiana and this, with the Cayenne 
record, seems to form the eastern limit of its range, there being, as 
* far as I know, no records for eastern Brazil or the lower Amazon, 
while Darwin’s record, already referred to, of a specimen taken 
in October, 183^, on James Island in the Galapagoes, is the only 
one with which I am familiar from west of the Andes. Indeed 
our bird’s further wanderings seem now to be largely confined to 
the eastern slope of this range of mountains and the head waters 
of the Amazon, until it reaches what may be its true winter quar- 
ters in southern or southwestern Brazil. Proceeding with our 
records, we find a specimen mentioned by Sclater* from Merida, 
about forty miles from the coast in Venezuela ; there is a speci- 
men in the British Museumf from Bogota, and Sclater and Salvinj 
mention its occurrence at Antioquia. Sclater§ also gives it from 
the Rio Napo, and there are two specimens from this locality in 
the American Museum collection, both adult males in spring 
plumage. Cassin|| cites a specimen from the Rio Negro, and in 
the British Museum Catalogue a specimen is mentioned from the 
Rio Javari in eastern Ecuador. All these records are absolutely 
without data and we may therefore welcome an exceedingly im- 
portant and interesting note by Berlepsch,lf who records the cap- 
ture by Garlepp, of an adult male in fresh and unworn plumage, 
at Tonantins on the upper Amazon, on May 6, 1S84, and also, in 
the same locality, of a second specimen in female plumage but 
without a label. From Paucotambo, in southern Peru, we have 
a record by Sclater,** and the same author, in his Catalogue, Jf 
mentions a specimen from Bolivia. In the American Museum 
there is an adult male, taken March 1, 1886, by Smith at Corumba 
Matto Grasso, while Nattererj j observed it in the same Province 
in November. This collector also found it on the Madeira in 
November ; at Maribitanas noted a single one on April 4, and 
on the 13th saw a great flock of these birds in black plumage. 
* P. Z. S., 1870, p. 781. 
t Cat. Brit. Mus., XI, p. 332. 
t P.Z.S., 1879, p. 509. 
§ Ibid., 1858, p. 72, 
|| Proc. Phil. Acad. Sc., 1866, p. 16. 
H Journal fur Ornithologie, 1889, p. 99. 
if ** P.Z.S., 1876, p. 16. 
ft Cat. Birds, 1862, p. 134. 
Cf. Pelzeln, Orn. Brazil, iii, p. 199. 
1056. Ravages of Rice-Birds. By Hon. Warner Miller. Congres- 
sional Record , 49th Congress, June 11, 1886, p. 5747. — A loss of $6.87 
per acre caused by the Rice Birds to the rice crop, and the total annual 
loss to one plantation is estimated at $8,250. 
6S7. Bobolinks. Editorial. Ibid.., p. 14.— On their scarcity in Con- 
necticut, and their wholesale destruction by gunners along the Delaware 
and southward in the fall. 1,000,000 Rails and Bobolinks killed near the 
mouth of the Delaware “during the month o f September alone 
1247. Economic Ornithology. Ibid., No. 18, Oct. 30, p. 415. 1 On the 
work of the Division of Economic Ornithology, Dept, of Agriculture, in 
procuring data concerning the relations to man of Passer doinesticus and 
Dolichony, oryzivorus. Ame ricas Field. XXVI 
1164. [Disappearance of~\ the Bobolink \_i?i Central New fork. J By 
Portsa. Ibid., No. i, July 29, p. 4lPor« Si Stream. Vol. XXVII 
Q,& Q-Vol.VIIX 
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