The Birds and Poets 137 



south, to be seen no more in our meadows until 

 May. 



Before leaving, the male puts on the sombre, 

 sparrow-like coat of the female, and the young, 

 following the usual order of nature, assume a garb 

 similar to that of the mother bird. When starting 

 south, therefore, the bobolinks are all dressed very 

 much alike. 



The bobolink has many names given him at dif- 

 ferent points along his long migration route. In 

 the Delaware, Maryland and Virginia rice fields 

 he is called ricebird and reedbird. When he stops 

 off for a while in Jamaica in October, on his way 

 down to the head waters of the Paraguay River, 

 he is called the butterbird, because of his fatness, 

 and in Florida, where he arrives in April, on his 

 way north, he is called the Maybird. One of our 

 common names for him is skunk blackbird. 



The bobolink's chief companions in the fields 

 during our summer, aside from the sparrows, are 

 the meadowlarks, the dickcissels and the bob- 

 whites. While the bobwhites may be heard 

 whistling in the wheat fields in August, the 

 meadow larks and dickcissels are mostly silent. 



The dickcissel, sometimes called the little 

 meadowlark, is quite common in our meadows, 

 and may often be seen perched upon telephone 

 wires, fences, shrubs and trees bordering country 

 roads and lanes. It is not a characteristic August 

 bird, for few, if any, birds could be called char- 

 acteristic of this late summer month. 



