RICE BUNTING, OR BOB-0-LlNK. 189 



deplored with urgent and incessant cries, as they hover 

 fearfully around the intentional or accidental intruder. 

 They appear sometimes inclined to have a second brood, 

 for which preparation is made while they are yet engaged 

 in rearing the first ; but the male generally loses his 

 musical talent about the end of the first week in July ; 

 from which time, or somewhat earlier, his nuptial or pied 

 dress begins gradually to be laid aside for the humble 

 garb of the female. The whole, both young and old, then 

 appear nearly in the same songless livery, uttering only a 

 chink of alarm when surprised in feeding on the grass 

 seeds, or the crops of grain which still remain abroad. 

 When the voice of the Bob-o-link begins to fail, with the 

 progress of the exhausting moult, he flits over the fields 

 in a restless manner, and merely utters a broken 'bob'Iee, 

 'bob^lee, or with his songless mate, at length, a 'iveet \veet, 

 b'leet b'leet, and a noisy and disagreeable cackling chirp. 

 At the early dawn of day, while the tuneful talent of the 

 species is yet unabated, the effect of their awakening and 

 faultering voices from a wide expanse of meadows, is 

 singular and grand. The sounds mingle like the noise 

 of a distant torrent, which alternately subsides and rises 

 on the breeze, as the performers awake or relapse into 

 rest ; it finally becomes more distinct and tumultuous, till 

 with the opening day it assumes the intelligible charac- 

 ter of their ordinary song. The young males, towards 

 the close of July, having nearly acquired their perfect 

 character, utter also in the morning, from the trees which 

 border their favorite marshy meadows, a very agreeable 

 and continuous low warble, more like that of the Yellow- 

 bird than the usual song of the species ; in fact, they 

 appear now in every respect as Finches, and only become 

 jingling musicians, when robed in their pied dress as 

 Icteri ! 



