Some Common Birds Useful to the Farmer 
17 
orchard. It is apparent that where moderately abundant, the red-wing does 
more good than harm, but in sections where it becomes excessively abundant 
a reduction in its numbers is justifiable. 
BOBOLINK 
The bobolink, ricebird, or reedbird 44 (fig. 15) is a common summer resident 
of the United States, north of about latitude 40°, and from New England west¬ 
ward to the Great Plains, wintering beyond our southern border. In New 
England there are few birds about which so much romance clusters as this 
rollicking songster, naturally associated with sunny June meadows; but in the 
South there are none on whose head so many maledictions have been heaped 
on account of its fondness for rice. During its sojourn in the Northern States 
it feeds mainly upon insects and 
seeds of useless plants; but while 
rearing its young, insects constitute 
its chief food, and almost the exclu¬ 
sive diet of its brood. After the 
young are able to fly, the whole fam¬ 
ily gathers into a small flock and 
begins to live almost entirely upon 
vegetable food. This consists for 
the most part of weed seeds, since 
in the North these birds do not ap¬ 
pear to attack grain to any great 
extent. They eat a few oats, but their 
stomachs do not reveal a great quan¬ 
tity of this or any other grain. As 
the season advances they gather into 
larger flocks and move southward, 
until by the end of August nearly all 
have left their breeding grounds. On 
their way they frequent the reedy 
marshes about the mouths of rivers 
and on the inland waters of the coast 
region and subsist largely upon wild 
rice. In the Middle States, during their southward migration, they are com¬ 
monly known as reedbirds, and, becoming very fat, are treated as game. 
Formerly, when the low marshy shores of the Carolinas and some of the 
more southern States were devoted to rice culture the bobolinks made great 
havoc both upon the sprouting rice in spring and upon the ripening grain on 
their return migration in the fall. While the damage is not so great as when 
this region was the center of rice production, still it amounts to many thou¬ 
sands of dollars annually. As a remedy, an open season on ricebirds was pro¬ 
vided in the Coast States from New Jersey to Florida. 
CROW 
In one or another of its geographic races the common crow 45 (fig. 16) breeds 
in great numbers throughout the States east of the Plains and from the Gulf 
well up into Canada, while in less abundance it is found in California and in 
the Northwestern States. During the colder months a southern migratory 
movement brings most of these birds within the borders of the United States, 
and at about the latitude of Philadelphia and southern Illinois we find them 
congregating nightly in roosts. Farmers dwelling in the vicinity of such roosts 
frequently suffer losses to shocked corn. 
In fact, none of our native birds so much concerns the average farmer of the 
Eastern States as the common crow. Many of our present criticisms of this 
bird, as its pulling sprouting corn, feeding on ripening ears, damaging fruits of 
various kinds, destroying poultry and wild birds, and disseminating diseases 
of live stock, were common complaints in the days of the early colonists. Many 
of the virtues of the crow, now quite generally recognized, also have been 
matters of record for many years. In recent times, however, scientific study 
of these problems, including the examination of the stomachs of hundreds of 
crows secured in every month of the year and under a variety of conditions, 
has enabled us to render a much fairer verdict than was formerly possible. 
Fig. 15.—Bobolink, rice bird, or reed bird. 
Length, about 7 inches. 
44 Dolichonyx o-ryzivorus. 
45 Corvus brackyrht/nchos. 
