594 



Reading-Course for Farmers' Wives. 



Professor Bailey in his " Nature-Study Idea " says : " I have always 

 wished that the poet had told the whole story. The poem tells us 

 of the life of the bobolink ; but after the breeding season is past, 

 the birds gather in flocks in the rice-fields and reeds of the South 

 and are then known as rice-birds and reed-birds. In great num- 

 bers they are slaughtered for the market, and thereby the bobolink 



Fig. 144. ]'oiing crozi's, interesting and mischievous. 



does not become an abundant species in the North. May we 

 not add : 



Far in the South he gathers his clans, 



Nor thinks of the regions of ice; 

 Too early yet for housekeeping plans, 

 He rev'ls and gluttons in fields of rice. 

 Rice-bird, bob-o'-link, 

 Spink, spank, spink ; 

 Hunter is waiting under the bloom, 

 Robert of Lincoln falls to his doom. 

 Chee, chee, chee. 



