44 
Chapman on the Winter Distribution of the Bobolink. [January 
Cassin’s* mention of a specimen taken by Page on the La Plata, 
marks the southern limit of our bird’s distribution and concludes 
the South American records with which I am acquainted. On 
the return migration we have comparatively few data to assist us ; 
those relating to South America, which I have already presented, 
apparently indicate that the journey is commenced early in April, 
but that some individuals linger until May, and on the 20th of 
that month Salvin, as before mentioned, found a pair on the 
coast of Honduras. Gossef says they return to Jamaica in 
April, but stay only a short time, and this record renders it 
probable that the line of flight chosen in the fall is simply retraced 
in the spring. Gundlachj reports their arrival in Cuba in May, 
and says they remain only a few days, just how many is not 
stated, but he elsewhere says§ they are present when the last of the 
“Sylvicolidae” depart. 
We might now suppose that the southern coast of Florida 
would prove the sole entering port to the eastern United States ; 
probably the larger number of birds do choose this route, but 
others pass northwards through the Bahamas, where they are true 
transients, scarcely pausing to rest in their journey. In the Ameri- 
can Museum there is a male, collected on Andros Island by C. J. 
Maynard, April 25, and labelled by this collector as the “first of 
the migration.” At Nassau on New Providence, Bryant|| first 
notes their appearance May 6, when he saw a number of flocks 
flying to the westward, and on May 7 the country was filled with 
them, all being males. Numerous flocks continued to arrive 
May 8 ; on the 9th many females were killed ; on the 10th only 
a few were observed, and May 1 1, they had entirely disappeared. 
It now only remains to call attention to the bird’s stay in localities 
far south of their southern breeding limits where, tempted by an 
abundance of food, they linger to an unusually late date. At 
Gainesville, Florida, If I found both sexes in great numbers, feed- 
ing in the oat-fields as late as May 25, and we are familiar with 
V 
* Proc. Phil. Acad. Sc., 1866, p. 16. 
t Birds Jamaica, 1847, p. 229. 
| Journal fur Ornithologie, 1874, p. 129. 
§ Ibid., 1872, p. 419. 
|| Proc. Bost. Soc., VII, 1859, p. 119. 
U Auk, V, 1888, p. 272. 
1890.] 
Mearns, Arizona Mountain Birds. 
45 
% Dr. Merriam’s* records from the rice fields of South Carolina and 
Georgia, which the birds frequent until May 29, a date at which 
we generally consider the migration to be nearly completed and 
when their earlier comrades are already well established in their 
summer housekeeping. Ank, Vll. Jan. 1890 . p. S 
/ 
1056. Ravages of Rice-Birds. By Hon. Warner Miller. Congres- 
sional Record , 49th Congress, June n, 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. 
687. 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 STTO 
mouth of the Delaware “during th e month of September alo ned’ V OAc V 
1247. Economic Ornithology. Ibid. , No. 18, Oct: 30^ p. 415. On the 
work of the Division of Economic Ornithology, Dept, of Agriculture, in 
procuring data concerning the relations to man of Passer domesticus and 
1164. [Disappearance oj ~ | the Bobolink [in Central New Tork. J By 
Portsa. Ibid., No. i, July 29, p. 4 : S T ©r* & Stream# 'V’ol.XXVlI ^ 
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