. Useful birds and their protection. Containing brief descriptions of the more common and useful species of Massachusetts, with accounts of their food habits, and a chapter on the means of attracting and protecting birds. Birds; Birds. BIRDS OF FIELD AND OABDEN. 323 The males chase each other madly, and swiftly pursue the females over the grass tops; or, sailing with down-bent wings, pour forth their torrent of music. The alarm note is a metallic chenh. When the young have been reared, the males begin to lose their striking dress, the song ceases, and early in August the Bobolinks are seen fly
. Useful birds and their protection. Containing brief descriptions of the more common and useful species of Massachusetts, with accounts of their food habits, and a chapter on the means of attracting and protecting birds. Birds; Birds. BIRDS OF FIELD AND OABDEN. 323 The males chase each other madly, and swiftly pursue the females over the grass tops; or, sailing with down-bent wings, pour forth their torrent of music. The alarm note is a metallic chenh. When the young have been reared, the males begin to lose their striking dress, the song ceases, and early in August the Bobolinks are seen flying about in small flocks, uttering mellow chinks, as they prepare for their .southern journey. In May, June, and July insects form about eighty-five per cent, of the BoTjolink's food. The bird is very destructive to grasshop- ,iemaie. pers and caterpillars, particularly to the army worm. It eats some parasitic Hymenoptera, and this may be looked upon as a bad habit; but otherwise little fault can be found with the Bobolink while it remains in the meadows of the north. In the south, however, the Bobolinks, together with the Blackbirds, cause an annual loss of fully two million dollars to the rice growers, and would destroy the whole crop were not all the hands on every plantation engaged during the "rice bird " season in shooting or frightening the birds. This continued shooting undoubtedly has had some eflFect on the number of birds breeding in the north, and Bobolinks are not now so genera,lly common in Massachusetts as they were forty years ago. They have been reduced some by early mowing in the nesting fields, but their diminution from year to year is hardly perceptible. PIGEONS AND DOVES. This group of bii'ds is now represented in Massachusetts by but one species, the Mourning Dove, as the Passenger Pigeon appears to have disappeared, and may now be ex- tinct. The Mourning Dove, which is often mistaken for it, is now protected by law at all times,
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