220 
ICTERUS AGRIPENNIS. 
not a single grain of rice cultivated within the United 
States, the country produces an exuberance of food, of 
which they are no less fond. Insects of various kinds, 
grubs, May-flies, and caterpillars, the young ears of 
Indian corn, and the seed of the wild oats, or, as it is 
called in Pennsylvania, reeds (the zizania aquatica of 
Linnaeus,) which grows in prodigious abundance along 
the marshy shores of our large rivers, furnish, not only 
them, but millions of rail, with a delicious subsistence 
for several weeks. I do not doubt, however, that the 
introduction of rice, hut more particularly the progress 
of agriculture, in this part of America, has greatly 
increased their numbers, by multiplying their sources 
of subsistence fifty fold within the same extent of 
country. 
In the month of April, or very early in May, the 
rice bunting, male and female, arrive within the southern 
boundaries of the United States ; and are seen around 
the town of Savannah, in Georgia, about the 4th of 
May, sometimes in separate parties of males and females, 
but more generally promiscuously. They remain there 
but a short time ; and, about the 12th of May, make 
their appearance in the lower parts of Pennsylvania, as 
they did at Savannah. While here, the males are ex- 
tremely gay and full of song; frequenting meadows, 
newly ploughed fields, sides of creeks, rivers, and watery 
places, feeding on May-flies and caterpillars, of which 
they destroy great quantities. In their passage, how- 
ever, through Virginia, at this season, they do great 
damage to the early wheat and barley, while in its milky 
state. About the 20th of May, they disappear, on their 
way to the north. Nearly at the same time, they 
arrive in the State of New York, spread over the whole 
New England States as far as the river St Lawrence, 
from lake Ontario to the sea ; in all of which places, 
north of Pennsylvania, they remain during the summer, 
building, and rearing their young. The nest is fixed 
in the ground, generally in a field of grass ; the outside 
is composed of dry leaves and coarse grass, the inside 
is lined with fine stalks of the same, laid in considerable 
