BIRDS OF PENNSYLVANIA. 
207 
and eggs are described by Dr. Coues as follows: “ The Bobolink makes 
a rude and flimsy nest of dried grass on the ground, and lays four or 
five eggs, 0.85 long by about 0.63 broad, dull bluish-white, sometimes 
brownish-white, spotted and blotched with dark chocolate or blackish- 
brown surface marks, and others of paler hue in the shell. The nests 
are cunningly hidden, and often further screened from threatened ob¬ 
servation by ingenious devices of the parents .”—(From Birds of North- 
j west.) The food of these birds, during their spring sojourn in Pennsyl¬ 
vania is composed chiefly of different kinds of terrestrial insects, also 
I the seeds of various weeds, grasses, etc. I have examined the stomach 
I contents of twenty-seven Bobolinks (captured in Chester county, Pa., 
May, 1879, ’80, ’82 and ’83), and found that eighteen had fed exclusively 
on beetles, larvae, ants and a few earth-worms; five, in addition to insects 
and larvae, showed small seeds, and particles of green vegetable materials, 
apparently leaves of plants; the four remaining birds revealed only 
> small black and yellow colored seeds. After the breeding season the 
Beed-birds (both sexes), about the middle of August, again make their 
appearance in our meadows and grain fields. At this time, although 
I various forms of insects are abundant, they subsist almost entirely on a 
| vegetable diet. They visit the cornfields, and, in company with the 
I English Sparrow, prey to a more or less extent on the corn; like the 
sparrow they tear open the tops of the husk and eat the milky grain. 
! Fields of Hungarian grass are resorted to and the seed eagerly devoured. 
The different seeds of weeds and grasses which grow so luxuriantly in 
I the marshy swamps and meadows are likewise fed upon with avidity. 
The following interesting remarks, relative to the Bice-birds, are taken 
from the annual report of the Agricultural Department, for the year 
1886, by Dr. C. Hart Merriam, ornithologist, United States Department 
of Agriculture, Washington, D. C.: 
“ One of the most important industries of the southern states, the cul- 
j tivation of rice, is crippled and made precarious by the bi-annual attacks 
I of birds. Many kinds of birds feed upon rice, but the bird which does 
the most injury than all the rest is the Bobolink ( Dolichonyx oryzivorus). 
* * * The name of “ Bice-bird ” is familiar to most persons in the 
north, but the magnitude of its depredations is hardly known outside 
j of the narrow belt of rice fields along the coasts of a few of the southern 
! states. Innumerable hosts of these birds visit the fields at the time of 
j planting in spring, devouring the seed-grain before the fields are 
flooded, and again at harvest-time in the fall, when, if maturing grain is 
| ‘in the milk,’they feed upon it to a ruinous extent. To prevent total 
i destruction of the crop during the periods of bird invasion thousands 
| of men and boys, called ‘bird-minders,’ are employed, hundreds of thou¬ 
sands of pounds of gunpowder are burned, and millions Of birds are 
killed. Still the number of birds invading the rice fields each year 
