A MIDSUMMER EXCURSION 251 



Early next morning the party set out. Five happy 

 children — the youngest eight and the oldest fifty-eight 

 — started from Orchard Farm behind a pair of com- 

 fortable white horses that never wore blinkers or check- 

 reins. These big members of the party were human 

 enough to look around as the children scrambled into 

 the surrey, and then prick up their ears as if they knew 

 the difference between a picnic and a plough, and were 

 happy accordingly. 



They trotted down the turnpike a mile, and then 

 turned into a cross-road bordered by hay-fields almost 

 ready for cutting. Olive was driving, for she loved 

 the old white horses. Rap, Nat, and Dodo sat in the 

 middle seat, and the Doctor behind. 



" Please, Doctor, what is the name of the Bird family 

 we are going to visit? " asked Rap. 



" The family of the Blackbirds and Orioles ; but it 

 has a Latin name, leteridce, when it walks in the pro- 

 cession." 



" Listen ! listen ! " cried Dodo. " Oh, Olive, do stop ; 

 there's some kind of a bird on top of those bars that is 

 singing as if he had started and couldn't stop, and I'm 

 sure his voice will fly away from him in a minute ! " 



Olive said " whoa " immediately. 



" It's only a Bobolink ! " said Rap, as the bird spread 

 his wings and soared into the air still singing, leaving 

 a little stream of music behind liim, as a dancing canoe 

 leaves a train of ripples in the water. 



" It is a Bobolink, surely," said the Doctor, " and not 

 ' only a Bobolink,' but the very bird we should be most 

 glad to see — the first of the Blackbird and Oriole 

 family — the harlequin in his summer livery." 



