142 A BOBOLINK RHAPSODY. 



that I thought half a dozen were singing, — and 

 then dropped into the grass. Soon others ap- 

 peared here and there, and sang it mattered not 

 how or where, — soaring or beating the wings, 

 on a grass stem, the top of a tree, hidden in 

 the grass, or rudely rocked by the wind, they 

 "sang and sang and sang." 



Then for a while all was still. A turkey lead- 

 ing her fuzzy little brood about in the grass thrust 

 her scrawny neck and anxious head above the 

 daisies, said "quit! quit! " to me, and returned 

 to the brooding mother-tones that kept her fam- 

 ily around her. Tiring of my position while 

 waiting for the concert to resume, I laid my 

 head back among the ferns, letting the daisies 

 and buttercups tower above my face, — strangely 

 enough, by this simj)le act realizing as never be- 

 fore the real motherhood of the earth. 



While I lay musing, lo, a sudden burst of 

 music above my head! A bobolink sailed over 

 my face, not three feet from it, singing his mer- 

 riest, and then dropped into the grass behind me. 

 Oh, never did I so much wish for eyes in the 

 back of my head! He must be almost within 

 touch, yet I dared not move; doubtless I was 

 under inspection by that keen dark eye, for the 

 first movement sent him away with a whir. 



My next visitors were a small flock of six or 

 eight cedar-birds, who were seriously disturbed 



