154 THE BOBOLINK'S NEST. 



must seem from the bobolink point of view al- 

 most the end of the world. Men and horses and 

 great rattling machines, armed with sharp 

 knives, which laid low every stem of grass and 

 flower, and let the light of the sun in upon the 

 haunts and the nests of the bobolink babies. 



Happily, however, not all the earth is meadow 

 and subject to this annual catastrophe; and I 

 think the whole flock took refuge in a pasture 

 where they were safe from the hay-cutters, and 

 had for neighbors only the cows and the crow 

 babies. 



