The bobolink (fig. 9) is a common summer resident of the United States, north of about latitude 40°, and from New England westward to the Great Plains, wintering beyond our southern border. In New England there are few birds, if any, around which so much romance has clustered; in the South none on whose head so many maledictions have been heaped. The bobolink, entering the United States from the South at a time when the rice fields are freshly sown, pulls up the young plants and feeds upon the seed. Its stay, however, is not long, and it soon hastens northward, where it is welcomed as a herald of summer. During its sojourn in the Northern States it feeds mainly upon insects and small seeds of useless plants; but while rearing its young, insects constitute its chief food, and almost the exclusive diet of its brood. After the young are able to fly, the whole family gathers into a small flock and begins to live almost entirely upon vegetable food. This consists for the most part of weed seeds, since in the North these birds do not appear to molest grain to any great extent. They eat a few oats, but their stomachs do not reveal a great quantity of this or any other grain. As the season advances they gather into larger flocks and move southward, until by the end of August nearly all have left their breeding grounds. On their way they frequent the reedy marshes about the mouths of rivers and on the inland waters of the coast region, subsisting largely upon wild rice. After leaving the Northern States they are commonly known as reed birds, and having become very fat are treated as game.