22 Sketches of Some Common Birds. 



bility of song and its rollicking gayety of spirit have in- 

 spired the poet to weave into verse the fanciful rhythm 

 of its jingling notes. Its history has been written with 

 more care than the lives of many of our great men, and 

 its place in our literature has been made secure by the 

 classic biography of the species penned by Washington 

 Irving. However, it is probable that there are more 

 persons who know about the bobolink than who know 

 the bird from a personal observation of its appearance 

 and manners. It is easily identified, for no other bird is 

 similarly marked, and no other bird affects the same 

 hilarity of manner or has the same merry jingle of song. 

 The person who has read accurate accounts of its habits 

 and has formed an intelligent idea of its eccentric vocal- 

 ism is almost certain to identify the bobolink when the 

 first opportunity presents itself. In my opinion many of 

 the praises sung of the bobolink are undeserved, and fre- 

 quently the descriptions of its manners and song are 

 somewhat exaggerated. One writer, whose interesting 

 volume of bird life lies before me, asserts that the bobo- 

 link is the finest bird of our fields and meadows, an esti- 

 mation of the bird in its eastern habitat which may not 

 be incorrect. Judged by its manners in this section, 

 however, it is not superior to the horned lark that sits 

 on the ground near it and lisps its ditty, nor to the 

 Dickcissel that sings persistently farther along the hedge- 

 row, nor does it compare favorably with the meadow lark 

 in sweetness of song or beauty of color. Its unusual vi- 

 vacity of spirit in the mating season and the tinkling 

 rhythm of its notes have served chiefly to enhance the 

 popularity of the bobolink, for a careful comparison of its 

 qualities and characteristics with those of some of its fel- 

 lows would surely lessen the distance which now ap- 

 parently intervenes between the station of the bobolink in 

 literature and those of other species of merit now scarcely 

 recognized. 



As a species, the bobolink is quite generally distributed 

 throughout eastern North America, ranging northward to 

 the Saskatchewan Eiver, and westward to the Hocky 

 Mountains, breeding throughout its given habitat. The 

 winter home of the species includes the region from Mex- 



