24 Sketches of Some Coiiwion Birds. 



female alight in the hedge or in a tree, the gallants in her 

 train are likely to follow her and redouble their efforts to 

 please her with their voluble strains. They do not ob- 

 trude their company upon her with unbecoming per- 

 sistence at this time, however, and she appears somewhat 

 indifferent to their gallant behavior; for she is, perhaps, 

 more interested in their safe arrival at the end of the long 

 journey. In the evident absence of the ardor noticeable 

 in the advances of the males several weeks later, we may 

 fancy that they make themselves agreeable to the lady 

 because she happens to be their traveling companion, and 

 they are in her escort to her summer home. 



In the " History of North American Birds," the New 

 England habits of the bobolink are thus described by Dr. 

 Brewer: ''When they first appear, usually after the 

 middle of Ma}^ they are in small parties, composed of 

 either sex, absorbed in their courtships, and overflowing 

 with song. When two or three male bobolinks, decked 

 out in their gayest spring apparel, are paying their at- 

 tentions to the same drab-colored female, contrasting so 

 strikingly in her sober brown dress, their performances 

 are quite entertaining, each male endeavoring to out-sing 

 the other. The female appears coy and retiring, keeping 

 closely to the ground, but always attended by several 

 aspirants for her affection. After a contest, often quite 

 exciting, the rivalries are adjusted, the rejected suitors are 

 driven off by their more fortunate competitor, and the 

 happy pair begin to put in order a new home. It is in 

 their love-quarrels that their song appears to the greatest 

 advantage. They pour out incessantly their strains of 

 quaint but charming music, now on the top of a fence, a 

 low bush, or the swaying stalk of a plant that bends with 

 their weight. The great length of their song, the immense 

 number of short and variable notes of which it is com- 

 posed, the volubility and confused rapidity with which 

 they are poured forth, the eccentric breaks, in the midst 

 of which we detect the words 'bob-o-link' so distinctly 

 enunciated, unite to form a general result to which we 

 can find no parallel in any of the musical performances of 

 our other song-birds." 



The bobolink nests in this latitude soon after the middle 



