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- 2 - lake bed. Elsewhere water is drawn from the Colorado River into lateral canals that carry it directly to the rice fields. Near El Campo much rice was irrigated by means of water taken from wells and this practice is followed to some extent in other parts of the area under discussion. There had been very little rain in this region for the past two seasons and everywhere the soil and the vegetation appeared abnormally dry. The small amount of precipitation had been followed as a natural consequence by a marked decrease in the volume of stream flow in the Colorado River, so that the supply of water available for irrigation has not sufficed for the needs of the rice growers. Because of this the areas devoted to rice in 1917 covered only about one-third of the acreage in normal years, and extensive tracts formerly devoted to rice culture are now given over to cotton and corn grown by dry farming methods. Plowing begins here in January and rice is planted from the end of February on into April. Normally the rice harvest is over by the middle of October. Occasionally heavy rains set in and in some instances it is said that it was not possible to get the rice out of the fields until January. In 1917 the harvest was completed early and there was no shocked rice in the fields at the time of my visit. Investigation of bird damage was limited to securing information from rice growers who seemed reliable, and to the identification in the field of the species of birds implicated. Whenever opportunity permitted any time available was devoted to study and observation of the habits of species that were said to be injurious. Twenty-seven blackbirds belonging to four species that had been feeding in rice stubble were collected and their stomachs preserved for examination in the laboratory.
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