The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1889-09-30
TIE LITTLE RICE BIRDS.
They Do Not Eat But Suck the Rice
The Birds Getting Fewer.

AIS GCtSi18 rcWoEs
The good-natured capitalists who are dis
cussing the project of a IS. 900 canning fac
tory over at Charleston for canning rice
birds no doubt think there's millions in it,
but the rice planters over this way laugh at
the idea.
A prominent rice planter, who has
watched with all the interest of an orni-
biologist the habits of the rice bird, although
they are largely in bis debt for many gen
erations Of the little creatures says that the
rice birds are rapidly decreasing IN numbers
from year to year, and that this year the
decrease was more noticeable than in former
years.
Ine rice bird is an eDicure. The popular
idea is that they swallow the grain, but
this is a delusiOn. 1t is only the milk of the
tender grain upon which they feed, and
they obtain the tactical fluid by inserting
the bill 10 the grain and sucking the juicy
delicacy. The depredations of the rice birds
IN the southern rice fields begin in April at
the early planting season, the birds sucking
the juice, which IS the life of the sprouting
grain. To prevent their destructive work
many planters immerse the grain before
sowing in a tar solution, and as the rice
birds do not like the flavor of tar they soon
| desert field where the planter has taken
the precaution to spoil the taste of the grain.
Tue birds come here annually abo..t April
y, ADD their appearance is the signal for
suspension of rice planting. the birds,
| finding no more sprouting rice, leave toward
the latter part of May, going northward
| along the coast as far as the Canadas, feed
ing on the milk of the wild rice along the
coast, the young oats, wheat, rye and barley
IN their seasons.
The birds breed in the northern meadows,
laying five or six eggs of purplish white,
blotched with purpie stains and brown
spotted 1.-THE larger end of the egg The eggs
are laid in artificial nests of withered grass.
| After the breeding season is over the birds
begin to migrate south ward, reaching the
| southern rice fields with unerrin instinct
| about the time the first paintings of rice
are in milk, toward the middle or tSird
week in August, and remain about month,
when they continue further south, going to
Mexico, South Amer ca, Cuoa and Jamaica
in time to work on late rice plalCisgs, and
next they ravage the seeds of the guinea
grass, becoming so fat that they are given
the name of "butter birds"
In the north they are known as reed
birds, So that with their ornithol ,gical
name of bobolink they are known by five
different nam ss-bobolink, rice bird reed
bird, and butter bird, and on heir appear
ance here III spring they are called May
birds
As they are considered a great table
dehcacy, they are pursued by both amateur
and professional >portsmel, and as rice
planters employ boys with shofguns to kill
them, erecting platforms in the ricefields
where the gunn5r may be under cover, it
will account for their decreasing hunters
on each semi-annual visitation in III S
section, and eventually they may become as
scarce as the wild pigeon and finally ex-
tlnct, or cease to live ami migrate in
colonies.
In spring the male boboliak's plumags is
different from that after the breeding sea-
son, when he assumes the plumage of the
female. In its spring dress it has the upper
part of the head, shoulders, wings, tail, and
the whole of the -plumage black:
lower part of the back blueish white;
scapulars, rump and tail coverts white
there is large patch of brownish yellow
on the back of the neck; bill
blueish black. which, in the female, young
male and adult, after the month of June, is
pale fesh-colOT. The female has the back
streaked with brownish black; the whole
lower parts of a dull yellow. The young
birds have the dress of the female.
The males are constantly singing in the
spring, and the rice planter, in referring to
| their music in the rice fields, said it was 50
monotonous that it was almost enough to
drive nervous man crazy. The rice birds
have lett this section on their more
| southwark migration, the cold wave
making them pack of in great
haste. and they had no particu-
| lar reason TO stay, as the grain of the last
| planting is too hard for their bills. Here
and there may be stray rice bird, but they
are to be rarely met with now.