of 



the heartless demand that both species, once very 

 abundant, are now almost extinct. 



Bobolink is another special case. He has two com- 

 plete moults a year. Now, as I write, I hear him 

 singing over the meadow, a jet black, white, and 

 cream-buff lover, most strikingly adorned. His* wife, 

 down in the grass, looks as little like him as a spar- 

 row looks like a blackbird. After the breeding season 

 he moults, changing color so completely that he and 

 his wife and children all look alike, all like sparrows. 

 They even lose their name now, flying south under 

 the assumed name of "reedbirds." 



Bobolink passes the winter in Brazil, and at the 

 coming of spring, just before the long northward 

 journey begins, he moults again ; but you would 

 hardly know it to look at him, for, strangely enough, 

 he is not black and white, but still colored like a 

 sparrow as he was in the fall. Apparently he is. 

 Look at him more closely, however, and you will find 

 the brownish yellow color is all caused by a veil of 

 fine fringes hanging from the edges of the feathers. 

 Underneath are the black and white and cream-buff. 

 He starts northward, and by the time he reaches 

 Massachusetts the fringe veil is worn off and the 



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