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BOB WHITE

233

BCEOTIA

BOBOLINK

Carolina and Georgia. They are here known as rice-birds, and do great damage to the rice crops.

From here they go to their distant winter quarters in the West Indies and South America. The Bobolink is known by many names, being called May bird, Meadow-bird, American Ortolan, Butter-bird and Skunk Black-bird. Unlike most birds, his black color is on the breast, above he is light, scarcely to be distinguished from the m e a d o w-grass in which he makes his home. The nest upon the ground is built largely of this grass, with sometimes a few leaves. The eggs, three to seven in number, vary in size and color. Insects are their chief food. The Bobolink is a shy bird; seldom seen, but often heard, the song of the male is musical, rippling and jolly. John Burroughs calls him "the gladdest bird that sings and flies." . ..

"Bubbling throat and hovering flight And jubilant heart as e'er was made." Bob White, a very interesting and useful bird, distributed throughout the United States from Maine to Dakota and south to the Gulf. He is usually called quail, but belongs to a different family from the quail of the old world. He is a true friend to the farmer, making way with seeds of weeds and with destructive insects, eats the potato beetle and the moth responsible for the dreaded cut-worm. The male is 10 inches in length; above, wood-brown barred with black, near the tail mottled gray; front of head black; throat white; under part, whitish marked with black; above the eye on each side of the head a long line of white. His call is most characteristic, the loud, clear whistle a distinct "Bob White," "Bob White." It nests on the ground; in open fields, by roadside wall, and in scrubby places, the loose nest made of grass, leaves, weeds and straw. The numerous and conspicuous eggs are white, and as a rule vary in number from 10 to 18, though 25 have been known. Two or three broods are raised by one pair. The mating season begins early in May, but eggs are found from late May till late summer. "There are few prettier sights than a family of old quail with their young walking about fearlessly in a woodland meadow. ^ The bird's domestic life is particularly interesting from the part the male plays in the family, helping to build the nest, feeding Ms mate on the eggs, and, in case of her death, brooding in her place." (Dugmore).

There is also a Florida Bob White, smaller and darker than the one to the north. As is well known, Bob White is a valued game bird, in the north called quail, in the south, partridge. See Dug-more: Bird Homes; Merriam: Birds of Village and Field.

Boccaccio ^ (bok-ka'chd), Giovanni, an Italian novelist, was born either at Paris or at Florence in 1313. The early part of his life was spent at Naples, where he fell in love with a princess, whom, under the name of Fiammetta, he has made famous in his poems and stories. His most noted work is The Decameron. It opens with a description of the plague at Florence in 1348. A party of ladies and gentlemen who have left the city for rest, while away ten days (whence the name Decameron) in telling stories in a garden attached to a country villa. In all, a hundred tales are told. Boccaccio took the popular stories of the day and told them in a beautiful and classic Italian, which has placed him among the great romancers of Europe. Many later writers have drawn their plots from his stories. Later in life, Boccaccio gave up the gay life of society and devoted himself to business and study. He became acquainted with Petrarch, the great Italian .poet, and they were for long close friends. Boccaccio died at Certaldo, Italy, in 1375.

Bodleian (bod-le'dn) Library, the public library of Oxford University, England, named after Sir Thomas Bodley, who gave to it many books and did much to build it up in the early part of the i ;th century. Many other valuable collections have been added to it, and at present it is entitled to a copy of every book published in Great Britain. The library is especially rich in works connected with biblical literature and in materials for British history. It contains about 600,000 volumes and about 30,000 manuscripts.

Boeotia (be-o'sh/i-a), one of the ancient divisions of Greece, lying between Attica and Megara on the south and Locris and Phocis on the north. Its area was about i,120 square miles, a little smaller than Rhode Island. It was largely inclosed by mountains, and when its main river, the Cephissus, poured its swollen floods into Lake Copias in the spring, the plain for miles around became a lake. In the days of Alexander the Great a vast tunnel was cut in the rock for the discharge of the water, but this fell into ruin and the district remained marshy and unhealthful until it wasj drained in 1886. The fourteen greater cities of Bceotia formed the Boeotian League with Thebes at its head, and many famous battles were fought here. The people of this district fell behind the rest of the Greeks in culture, so that Bceotia became a general name for dullness; but the district, nevertheless, gave birth to the