STORIES ABOUT BIRDS. 821 



and, besides, like others who are very happy, 

 I suspect he wants every body else to be 

 happy, too. That is the way with many boys 

 and girls. They love to get a chance to chat 

 with every body they meet, not because they 

 are vain enough to suppose they have any 

 thing very pretty to say, but because they are 

 happy — so happy, that, if they attempt to dam 

 up the stream of enjoyment, it overflows its 

 banks. 



I have stopped, many a time, while passing 

 by a meadow, where the bobolink was per- 

 forming his solo, on purpose to hear his tune. 

 There is something so cheerful, so full of fun, 

 and so musical withal, in his song, that I can 

 listen to it for an hour, without getting tired. 

 It makes me laugh now, to think with what 

 a comic gravity — if I may use such a term — 

 his strains are sung. He begins slowly, coolly, 

 solemnly: ''Aw — koo — cro — c?^a?/," and so on. 

 That is the prelude. It means — so I under- 

 stand it; other folks, may translate it as they 

 choose — " Good people if you have nothing 

 better to do, listen to the song of a plain, old- 

 fashioned bobolink." Wei], the introduction 

 being over, the merry -hearted fellow gradually 

 quickens the movement of the air. In other 

 words — to use the terms employed in the 



