BIRDS AND POETS 19 
ing. But I am inclined to believe that the males 
think only of themselves and of outshining each 
other, and not at all of the approbation of their 
mates, as, in an analogous case in a higher species, 
it is well known who the females dress for, and 
whom they want to kill with envy! 
I know of no é_her song-bird that expresses so 
much self-consciousness and vanity, and comes so 
near being an ornithological coxcomb. The red- 
bird, the yellowbird, the indigo-bird, the oriole, the 
cardinal grosbeak, and others, all birds of brilliant 
plumage and musical ability, seem quite uncon- 
scious of self, and neither by tone nor act challenge 
the admiration of the beholder. 
By the time the bobolink reaches the Potomac, 
in September, he has degenerated into a game-bird 
that is slaughtered by tens of thousands in the 
marshes. I think the prospects now are of his 
gradual extermination, as gunners and sportsmen 
are clearly on the increase, while the limit of the 
bird’s productivity in the North has no doubt been 
reached long ago. There are no more meadows to 
be added to his domain there, while he is being 
waylaid and cut off more and more on his return to 
the South. It is gourmand eat gourmand, until in 
half a century more I expect the blithest and mer- 
riest of our meadow songsters will have disappeared 
before the rapacity of human throats. 
But the poets have had a shot at him in good 
time, and have preserved some of his traits. Bry- 
ant’s poem on this subject does not compare with 
