112 BIRDS OF FIELD, FOREST AND PARK 



attention, but his song is heard throughout the 

 day as he hovers on trembling wing above his 

 ground-set nest, or swings and sways on the 

 stout grass stalks. His best musical efforts are 

 heard when the bird is on the wing, and what a 

 singer he is! His rollicking, bubbling, tinkling 

 notes roll and tumble from his throat in a tor- 

 rent that seems to have its source in an inex- 

 haustible fountain of melody. There is no 

 describing his song in words, but Wilson Flagg's 

 "The O'Lincoln Family" is very suggestive: 



'Every one's a funny fellow; every one's a little fellow; 

 Follow, follow, follow, follow o'er the hill and in the hollow. 

 Merrily, merrily there they hie; now they rise and now they fly; 

 They cross and turn, and in and out, and wheel about and down the 



middle 

 With a phew shew Wadolincon; listen to me Bobolincon, 

 Happy's the wooing that's speedily doing, that's speedily doing, 

 That's merry and over with the bloom of the clover; 

 Boblincon, Wadolincon Winterseeble, follow, follow me!" 



The notes of this meadow minstrel are indeed 

 "over with the bloom of the clover," for when 

 the scythe invades his grassy home his song 

 dies as though the warder of the season had 

 issued a stop order. The song is not dropped 

 in a single day, but piecemeal, and with its dis- 

 appearance there is heard his call note, a highly 

 metallic '' chink " that is not heard earlier in the 

 season. Thoreau said of his notes, "They are 

 refreshing to my ear as the first distant tinkling 

 and gurgling of a rill to a thirsty man. . . . 

 But away he dashes and the meadow is ail 

 bespattered with melody. His notes fall with 

 the apple blossoms in the orchard. " The Bobo 



