THR RICE BUNTING. 
beetles, grasshoppers, crickets, ground spiders, &c., they 
frequently feed on the .seeds of dandelions and docks, the 
former of which are oily and sweet. Later in the season, and 
previous to leaving their native regions, they feed principally 
on various kinds of grass seeds, paricularly those of millet or 
other allied species (Panicums). If short of other food, they 
also attack the ripened fields of barley, wheat, and oats, in 
which they show their taste for plunder, and flock together 
like other blackbirds. 
About the middle of August, vast parties of these birds enter 
the states of New York and Pennsylvania on their way south, 
where, along the margins of the large rivers, they find an 
abundant means of subsistence, during their short stay, on the 
seeds of wild rice (Zizania). As soon as the cool nights of 
October set in, and the wild rice crops begin to fail, these birds 
take their departure from New Jersey and Pennsylvania, and 
in their further progress through the Southern States, they 
congregate in large numbers in the rice fields, upon which 
they greedily feed, and, before the crop is gathered, they have 
already made their appearance in Cuba and Jamaica, where 
they subsist on the seeds of the Guinea grass, (Sorghum,) and 
become so fat as truly to deserve the name of “ butter birds,” 
and are highly esteemed for the table. 
In a state of captivity, the food of this bird, during spring and 
summer, should resemble as nearly as possible that of nature; 
but in winter, he may be fed on rice, boiled in milk, millet, 
Canary seeds, wheaten bread, soaked in water, and minced 
animal food, containing no seasoning nor salt. 
