The interest in the vegetable food of this bird centers around grain. Only three kinds, corn, wheat, and oats, were found in the stomachs in appreciable quantities. They aggregate but little more than 13 per cent of the whole food, oats forming nearly half of this amount. Field investigation has shown, however, that, when local conditions are favorable, large flocks of red-wings may do considerable damage. Conspicuous among such cases are the losses suffered by farmers to sweet corn in some of the northeastern States and to milo in the South and West. In the rather limited grain-raising area of the Imperial Valley of California the annual damage to milo alone by enormous flocks of red-wings and yellow-headed blackbirds has been estimated to be fully $50,000. The most important item of the bird's food, however, is weed seed, which forms practically all of its food in winter and about 57 per cent of the fare of the whole year. The principal weed seeds eaten are those of ragweed, barnyard grass, and smartweed. That these seeds are preferred is shown by the fact that the birds begin to eat them in August, when grain is still readily obtainable, and continue feeding on them even after insects become plentiful in April. The red-wing eats very little fruit and does practically no harm to garden or orchard. It is apparent that where moderately abundant, the red-wing does more good than harm, but in sections where it becomes excessively abundant a reduction in its numbers is justifiable. BOBOLINK. [Illustration: Fig. 15.--Bobolink, ricebird, or reed bird. Length, about 7 inches.]