The Savannah morning news., 1900-07-05

recuperated. The change in the male
bobolink. is even more startling and abso-
Lutte. HeNlays aside his brilliant suit of
black and white, when he begins to think
of his late summer or early autumnal
tour, and begins putting on one of dark
brown. You cannot distinguish him from
his wife. His children are chiefly noted
as such from being smaller than the par
ent bird
For week. or even fortnight before
the great event. you will observe that
some matter of great public moment is
ender consideration in the boboink COM
munity. The elders-after the mornings
meal has been gathered in-wll hold long
councils in groups of a dozen or more
and discuss the burning question, which
probably relates to the best route as re-
CARDS safety and food to be taken in get
ting out of their native New England
The bobolink must be weather proph-
ct of no mean experience for his armies
never move when a great storm is i'm
pending. They usually so manage their
migration as to meet no storm at ALL
/ When all Is ready the bird column of
an entire township seems TO move at
once. Some soft morning you win notice
| little squads of from ten to fifty bobo-
links flying hither and there. The birds
are getting ready 10 move. That night,
or rather in the evening" about an hour
| before sunset. if you are a close observer,
| you will see them rise high in the air
and head southwark. They Will make one
| or two stops. one among the Susque-
| hanna fats another not far from Hav-
| red Grace, and there they reach their
| first Land of Promise, the great reedv
lmarshes of the Patuxent and Potomac,
/ and the other reed growing lowiands of
| rivers emptyng into the mighty Chesa-
| peake bay. Here they make long halt,
| and begin to enjoy the first fruits of their
! long. arduous and perilous journey. The
reeds In these vast marshes have heads
! fun of seeds that are sweet and nutritious
bird food.
Lose Their Singing Voices.
In these places of refuge the legions of
littleAbrown strangers from far away New
England make their first halt. With the
change. in plumage there has been an
other quite as notable These brown Wis
itors execute no trills nor carols, rising
me while in 1uttering ecstacy, high in the
| air. The only note heard among them is
a sort of sparrowlike chirp, fat and
! husky, that is nothing but a call of di-
reoton. The sole duty of the late bobo-
link now called reed Bird from its own
view, is. to get fat and TO do it is speedily
as possible. Ii takes on a very consid-
cradle quantity of adpose from the
contents of the seed panicles al the Top of
the reeds. In these great Businesses,
| comparatively safe from harm, the stran-
ger bobolnk from New England loses his
chief characteristic and becomes simply
an epicure. He takes a thorough course
in gastronomy at one of the first schools
in the world. To be sure il is expensive
He acquires his knowledge at great cost.
BY the last OF June or early in July the ell
egantly clad black and white bobolink,
that was a model of small bird form and
grace, has simply become rounded bali
of delicate flesh. He is as round as a ball
and as fat as butter.
But the highest degree of delicacy and
flavor in epicurean eyes has not yet been
attained. Further and further to the
southwark that mysterious instinct that
urged his first migration drives him until
the real promised land is attained in the
rice fields of the Carolinas and Georgia
and Louisiana. Here he becomes the
prince of small bird epicures, and his taste
attains its highest degree of daintiness and
deicacy. The hardy Northern bird that
quailed not at the wintry blasts from off
Cape Cod now shivers If the easterly wind
from the Atlantic blows too strongly, and
at the first sign of storm betakes himself
TO the thiCket of the reedy cover until the
trihe of a tempest be over The strong
winged singer that considered a nest of
young ants, laden with their larvae, a
dainty dish, now scorns fly or bug of the
most tempting character, and will touch
uaught but the rice grain just attaining
its highest perfection. Once fairly en-
camped in the vast areas OF rice field, It,
is a real difficulty to get the reed bird
out until he moves OF his own volition
This he usually does, just after the rice
is harvested. There is an abundance left,
for him. and our reed birds like an East
Indian deity, enters upon his third and last
incarnation He becomes the Carolina
rice bird" a name for the purveyors of
delicacies for great restaurants to conjure
with
How 10 Prepare Them.
To evolve the highest praise OF the rice
bird as delicacy. eschew the bird pie
That may be good enough when COM
pounded from other game. Like most
really delicious things, the rice bird is
most excellent when treated by a chef de