A NEW ENGLAND MAY-DAY 7 



changes his coat after the breeding 

 season, and the nestlings wear a hybrid 

 dress, half father, half mother. Does 

 the gunner know that the bobolink, 

 the jaunty Robert of Lincoln, whose 

 glossy black coat, patched with white 

 and buff, is so conspicuous in the low- 

 lands when in May and June he rings 

 out his delicious incoherent song, but 

 who becomes silent in August and 

 changed to a sober brown, is the reed- 

 bird that he slaughters? 



New songsters are arriving daily, 

 some as birds of passage only, and 

 others to remain. The bushes along 

 the lane are alive with twittering 

 guests. Now it is the wood-pewee, 

 with his plaintive cry, or his brother 

 the phoebe-bird, twisting and turning, 

 who has built his nest under the porch 

 for many a season, and out in the pas- 

 ture the chipping sparrow is gleaning 



