SOME COMMON BIRDS USEFUL TO THE FARMER. 
17 
the bird should be protected, except, perhaps, in a few places where it is over¬ 
abundant. 
BOBOLINK. 
The bobolink, rice bird, or reed bird 1 (fig. 15) is a common summer resident of 
the United States, north of about latitude 40°, and from New England westward 
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 con¬ 
stitute its chief food, and almost the 
exclusive diet of its brood. After 
the young are able to fly, the whole 
family 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 appear to attack grain to any 
great extent. They eat a few oats, 
but their stomachs do not reveal a 
great quantity 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 commonly 
known as reed birds, and becoming very fat are treated as game. 
Formerly, when the low marshy shores of tlie 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. With a change in the rice-raising districts, 
however, this damage is no longer done. 
CROW. 
In one or another of its geographic races the common crow 2 (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 move¬ 
ment 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 con¬ 
gregating 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. 
1 Dolichonyx oryzivorus. 
2 Cor mis brachyrhynchos. 
