32 BIRDS THROUGH AN OPERA-GLASS. 
glad to sk down on the stem of some sturdy 
young timothy before giving his last burst of 
song. 
Thoreau gives the best description I have ever 
seen of the first notes of the bobolink’s song. He 
says: “I hear the note of a bobolink concealed 
in the top of an apple-tree behind me. . . . He is 
just touching the strings of his theorbo, his glassi- 
chord, his water organ, and one or two notes globe 
themselves and fall in liquid bubbles from his 
tuning throat. It is as if he touched his harp 
within a vase of liquid melody, and when he lifted 
it out the notes fell like bubbles from the trem- 
bling strings. Methinks they are the most liquidly 
sweet and melodious sounds I ever heard.” 
Almost every one gives a different rendering of 
the bobolink’s meaning. The little German chil- 
dren playing in our meadows cry after him in 
merry mimicry, “ Oncle-dey dunkel-dey oncle-dey 
dunkel-dey.” ‘The farm boy calls him the “ corn- 
planting bird,” and thinks he says, “ Dig a hole, 
dig a hole, put it in, put it in, cover’t up, cover ’t 
up, stamp ont, stamp on ’t, step along.” 
VIII. 
RUFFED GROUSE; PARTRIDGE. 
THE partridge, or ruffed grouse as he is more 
properly called, is our first true woods bird. His 
