48 



rHE OOLOGIS'I 



proacii, she leaves a dark trial of linish- 

 ed-away-drops in the white dew and 

 you may tind her basket of eggs snugly 

 concealed at the foot of that 'white- 

 top" or "blaek-eyed Susan," simply by 

 following back her trial. 



I have found the Bobolink's uest June 

 5th with young just beginning to show 

 the tips of their cunning feathers, and 

 have found them flying eleven days 

 later. This was a little earlier for this 

 locality. But as, they raise but one 

 brood it is evidently necessary, that 

 this one be safely and quickly— that is 

 early in the season— raised, so that 

 they may escape the earliest hay mak- 

 ing. And though the hay maker may 

 tind the empty nest, he will but very 

 seldom happen upon one containing 

 eggs or young This will only occur 

 when i-ome mishap has retardt d a pair. 

 As the Bobolink is characteristic of the 

 fairest and sweetest season, coming to 

 us in time to sing from the top sprays 

 of our bloom-laden oi-chards, voicing 

 the bucolics of strawberry-time, and 

 sheep washing and shearing, it is tit 

 that we lose him when the tirst fresh- 

 ness and flowers of spring are gone.and 

 hotter summer comes like a nut brown 

 gipsy. By the fourth of July the Bobo- 

 link's wild bubbling song shows signs 

 oi waning. It is only a song of broken 

 bars now. He starts his jingle as 

 bravely as erewhile he did, but be- 

 fore he has gone far he appears to grow 

 absent minded, for his song snaps and 

 he relapses into silence. ^Again he tries 

 it with no better result. Tomorrow he 

 will not g» t so far as he can today. 

 His power of song is slipping from him. 

 He feels the coming change, he is de- 

 generating into a grating, metallic 

 voiced seed eating, russet-yellow "reed 

 bird." He who was a sweet singing 

 insect-feeder. By the twentieth of the 

 month I hear his tipsy roundelay no 

 more. He has ceased to revel in the 

 taverns of clover and "flea-bane;" his 

 music box is closed, his harp unstrung. 



The rare intoxicating wine of May and 

 the m< ad of June are gone now, and 

 the little deliaucher will quaff nothing 

 less sweet or pure, and henceforth is 

 sober and silent. And whether he 

 moults as some think or whether the 

 black fades out of his plumage as others 

 hold, he soon loses his suit of black al- 

 ready worn, and becomes the plain 

 brown ' Ret d bird" even in this coun- 

 try. And when he leaves us in early 

 September or latter August, we say 

 with Bryant: 



"When you can pipe that merry old strain 

 Robert of Lincoln come back again.'' 



After the "Reed- bird" he becomes 

 the "Rice-bird" of the south, then the 

 "Butter-bird" of the West Indies, as 

 Washington Irving says, "He has be- 

 come a bon vivant a gourmand; with 

 him now there is nothing like the "joys" 

 of the table." In a little while he 

 grows tired of plain homely fare, and is 

 off on a gastronomic tour in quest of 

 foreign luxuries. Such is the story of 

 ihe Bobolink; nice spiritual, musical, 

 admired, the joy of the meadows, and 

 the favorite bird of spring; Anally a 

 gross little f-ensualist, who expiates his 

 sensuality in the larder " 



We are happy iu this latitude in en- 

 tertaining "the vivaceous. voluble and 

 eccentric Bobolink" as Dr. Elliott Coues 

 calls him, in the happiest and most 

 beautiful and U!-etul t-tage of his motley 

 career, for with us he is the insectiver- 

 ous songster through the breeding seas- 

 on. We scarcely understand the mean- 

 ing of his speeiflc scientiflc name ory- 

 zivoi'us — I dev()ur rice. 



EkNEST WaTKKS VlCKiRS, 



Mahoning Co., Ohio. 



One of Hindkeds: — Thank you for 

 the .'■tart you gave m", in the scientific 

 study of birds and iheir (ggs. I owe it 

 all to ad. jou had in the )outh's Com- 

 panion Sibowt eight .\ears ago. Have 

 taken the Oolugist since Aug., 1890. I 

 have them bound together and was 

 reading in them just the other daj'. — 

 Wm. C. Thro. 



