BOB-0-LINK, or BOB-LINK, the usual name by which the Rice Bird, or Reed-Bird—the Skunk-Bird, Seecawk-Petheesew of the Cree Indians, the Rice-Bunting of Pennant and of Wilson, Rice-Troopial of authors, Hortulanus Carolinensis of Catesby, Emberiza orizyrora of Linnaeus, Merle agripennia of Bonaparte, Dolichonyx orizyvorus of Swainson—is known in the United States.
Catesby, Wilson, Audubon, and Naftali give the most oomplete accounts of this well-known bird :—" The whole continent of America," says the latter, " from Labrador to Mexico and the great Antilles, are the occasional residence of this truly migratory species. About the middle of March. or beginning of April, the cheerful Ilob-o-Link makes his appearance in the southern extremity of the United States, becom ing gradually arrayed in his nuptial livery, and accompanied by troops of his companions, who often precede the arrival of their more tardy mates." (Ilartnma's 'Travels,' p. 295, edit. Loud.) " Their wintering resort appears to be rather the West Indies than the tropical conti nent, as their migrations are observed to take place generally to the east of Louisiana, where their visite are rare and irregular." (Audu bon's 'Ornithological Biography, voL i. p. 2S3.) At this season also they make their approaches chiefly by night, obeying as it were more distinctly the mandates of an overruling instinct, which prompts them to seek out their natal regions ; while in autumn their progress, by day only, is alone instigated by the natural quest of food. About the let of May the meadows of Massachusetts begin to re-echo their lively ditty. At this season in wet places, and by newly-ploughed fields, they destroy many insects and their lame ; but while ou their way through the southern states they cannot resist the temptation of feeding on the early wheat and tender barley. According to their success in this way parties often delay their final northern movement as late as the middle of May, so that they appear to be in no haste to arrive at their destination at any exact period. The principal business of their lives however, the rearing of their young, does not take place until they have left the parallel of the 40th degree. In the savannahs of Ohio and Michigan, and the cool grassy meadows of New York, Canada, and New England, they fix their abode, and obtain a suffi ciency of food throughout the summer without molesting the harvest of the farmer until the ripening of the latest crops of oats and barley, when in their autumnal and changed dress, hardly known now as the same species, they sometimes show their taste for plunder, and flock together like the greedy and predatory blackbirds.
The song of the male generally ceases about the first week in July, and about the same time his variegated dress, which from a resem blance in its colours to that of the quadruped obtained for it tho name of 'Skunk-Bird ' among the Cree Iudians, is exchanged for the sombre hues of the plumage of the female. The author above quoted thus describes the autumnal migration :— "About the middle of August, in congregating numbers, divested already of all selective attachment, vast foraging parties enter New York and Pennsylvania on their way to the south. Hero along the shores of the large rivers, lined with floating fields of the Wild Rice (Zizaaia), they find an abundant means of subsistence during their short stay; and as their. flesh, now fat, is little inferior to that of the European ortolan, the reed- or rice-birds, as they are then called in their sparrow dress, form a favourite sport for gunners of all descrip tions, who turn out on the occasion and commit prodigious havoc among the almost silent and greedy roosting throng. The markets are then filled with this delicious game, and the pursuit, both for success and amusement along the picturesque and reedy shores of the Delaware and other rivers, is second to 1101.10 but that of rail-shooting. As soon as the cool nights of October commence, and as the wild rice crops begin to fail, the reed-birds take their departure from Penn sylvania and New Jersey, and in their further progress through the southern states they swarm in the rice-fields; and before the crop is gathered they have already made their appearance in the islands of Cuba and Jamaica, where they also feed on the seeds of the Guinea Grass (Sorghum), becoming so fat as to deserve tho name of Butter Birds,' and are in high esteem for the table."
Catesby, under the name of Caroline Ortolan, gives the following interesting account of the Rice-Bird, from which it appears that the damage done to the farmer by this comparatively weak agent is very great In the beginning of September, while the grain of riceIs yet soft and milky, innumerable flights of these birds arrive from some remote parts to the great detriment of the inhabitants. In 1724 an inhabitant near Ashley River had forty acres of rice so devoured by them that ho wan in doubt whether what they had left was worth the expense of gathering in. They are esteemed in Carolina the greatest delicacy of all other birds. When they first arrive they are lean, but in a few days become no excessively fat that they fly sluggishly and with diffi culty, and when shot frequently burst with the fall. They continue about three weeks, and retire by the time the rice first begins to harden. There is something so singular and extraordinary in this bird that I cannot pans it over without notice. In September, when they arrive in infinite swarms to devour the rice, they are all hens, not being accompanied with any cock. Observing them to be all feathered alike, I imagined they were young of both sexes not per fected in their colours ; but by opening some scores prepared for the spit I found them to be all females, and that I might leave no room for doubt repeated the search often on many of them, but could never find a cock at that time of the year. Early in the spring both cocks and hens make a trannlent visit together, at which time I mule the like search as before, and both acres were plainly distinguishable. . . . . In September, 1725, lying upon the deck of a sloop in a bay at Andros Island, I and tho company with me heard three nights euc cessively flights of these birds (their note being plainly distinguishable from others) passing over our heads northerly, which is their direct way from Cuba to Carolina ; from which I conceive, after partakiug of the earlier crop of rice at Cuba, they travel over sea to Carolina fur the sane intent, the rice there being at that time fit for them." Sir John Richardson says that the 54th parallel, which it reaches In June, appears to be the most northern limit of the Bob-o-Link, and gives a description of a male in its nuptial dress, which was killed on the Saskatchewan in that month in the year 1827.
Swainson places it as a genus of his third sub-family, Agcla bum, in the third or aberrant group of his Sturniri
Grassy meadows are the spots usually selected by the bird fur its nest, which is made on the ground, generally in some slightly depressed spot, of withered grass, so carelessly bedded together as scarcely to be distinguishable froin the neighbouring parts of the field. Here five or six eggs of purplish-white, blotched all over with purplish, and spotted with brown round the larger end, are laid.
The length of the Bobo-Link is about 7i inches. The male in his nuptial dress has the head, fore part of the back, shoulders, wings, tail, and the whole of the under plumage black, going off in the middle of the back to grayish ; scapulars, rump, and upper tail coverts white; there is a large patch of ochreous yellow on the nape and back of the neck; bill bluish-black, which in the female, young male, and adult male in his autumnal dress, is pale flesh-colour; the feathers of the tail are sharp at the and like a woodpecker's; legs brown.
The female, whose plumage the adult male assumes after the breeding season, has tho back streaked with brownish-black, not unlike that of a lark, according to Catesby, and the whole under parts of a dirty yellow. The young males resemble the females.