IF YOU HAD WINGS 



37 



suit. 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 sparrow looks like a black- 

 bird. But after the breeding-season he will moult 

 again, changing color so completely that he and his 

 wife and children will all look alike, all like spar- 

 rows, and will even lose their names, flying south 

 now under the name of " reedbirds." 



Bobolink passes the winter in Brazil ; and in the 

 spring, just before the long northward journey be- 

 gins, he lays aside his fall traveling clothes and 

 puts on his gay wedding garments and starts north 

 for his bride. But you would hardly know he was 

 so dressed, 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 that the brownish-yellow color is all caused by 

 a veil of fine fringes hanging from the edges of the 

 feathers. The bridegroom wearing the wedding veil? 

 Yes ! Underneath is the black and white and cream- 

 buff suit. He starts northward ; and, by the time 

 he reaches Massachusetts, the fringe veil is worn off 

 and the black and white bobolink appears. Speci- 

 mens taken after their arrival here still show traces 

 of the brownish-yellow veil. 



Many birds do not have this early spring moult 

 at all ; and with most of those that do, the great 



