JUNE BIRDS. 69 



out the most curious, incomprehensible, 

 jingling, roundabout, careless, joyous, laugh- 

 able medley that any bird-throat ever 

 uttered." 



All my readers are familiar with Bryant's 

 " Robert of Lincoln," in which he trys to 

 turn this song into English poetry. He is 

 hardly so successful, it seems to me, as 

 Wilson Flagg, a practical ornithologist, in 

 his charming little poem entitled *' The 

 O'Lincoln Family." 



Few birds undergo so complete a change 

 of plumage as the male bobolink at the 

 end of the breeding season. Then he not 

 only loses his voice, but takes on a dull 

 brown dress, in place of his conspicuous 

 black and white attire, and it would be dif- 

 ficult indeed to recognize in him the gayly 

 dressed minstrel of a month before. 



Late in August the bobolinks collect in 

 vast flocks, and begin to move southward 

 in their fall migration. During their pas- 

 sage through the Middle States, when they 

 become very fat, they are slaughtered in 

 great quantities for the table, and are there 



