Identifier: birdsofnewenglan00sam (find matches)
Title: The birds of New Englandand adjacent states: containing descriptions of the birds of New England ... together with a history of their habitats ... ; with illustrations of many species of the birds, and accurate figures of their eggs
Year: 1870 (1870s)
Authors: Samuels, Edward Augustus, 1836-1908
Subjects: Birds Birds Birds
Publisher: Boston : Noyes, Holmes
Contributing Library: Smithsonian Libraries
Digitizing Sponsor: Smithsonian Libraries

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earance in the SouthernUnited States, usually in small detached parties of fromeight to a dozen individuals, and proceeds leisurely to itssummer home in the North, generally at about the followingdates: being abundant in Georgia about April 20; in Dis-trict of Columbia, distributed about orchards and meadowsin flocks, from May 1st to 15th ; arrives on Long Island,N. Y., about the 20th of May ; and is abundant in thelatitude of Middle New England by the latter part of thatmonth. The males usually arrive in the North several days beforethe females, during which interim they frequent meadowsand fields in cultivated districts, preferring them to thinlysettled localities, and soon become very tame and familiar,considering the severity with which they were pursued bythe inhabitants of all the countries they traversed in theirmigration, by whom they are regarded only as a pest and anuisance. The Bobolink knows when he has arrived amonghis friends; and the same bird which would have risen be-
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Bobolink, Reed-bird, Dolickonyx oryzivorus. Swainson. THE BOBOLINK. 337 yond gunshot from you in the South will perch on yourgarden fence in New England as familiarly as if he were to the manor born, and regale you with a flood of hischoicest melodies. Almost everybody in the North knows the song of thisbird, and has laughed, in spite of him or herself, at the gro-tesque singer, as, perched on a twig in the cherry-tree bythe house, or in the elm by the roadside, or alder by thebrook, he nodded his head, quivered his wings, opened hismouth, and rattled out the most curious, incomprehensible,jingling, roundabout, careless, joyous, laughable medleythat any bird throat ever uttered. As soon as the females arrive, they become the especialobjects of attention with their male neighbors ; and the littlecontentions, both in music, and something more severe, wemust confess, for the possession of a favored one, betweenthe contesting suitors, are almost innumerable. When the birds are mated, usua

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