42 BIRDS OF THE GARDEN AND ORCHARD. 



partner, and listening to his delightful eloquence of 

 song. If we regard him as an orator, it must be allowed 

 that he is unsurpassed in fluency and rapidity of utter- 

 ance ; if only as a musician, that he is unrivalled in 

 brilliancy of execution. 



I cannot look upon him as ever in a very serious 

 humor. He seems to be a lively, jocular little fellow, 

 who is always jesting and bantering; and when half a 

 dozen different individuals are sporting about in the same 

 orchard, I can imagine they might represent the persons 

 dramatized in some comic opera. The birds never re- 

 main stationary upon a bough, singing apparently for 

 their own solitary amusement ; they are ever in com- 

 pany, passing to and fro, often beginning their song upon 

 the extreme end of an apple-tree bough, then suddenly 

 taking flight and singing the principal part while bal- 

 ancing themselves on the wing. The merriest part of 

 the day with these birds is the later afternoon, during 

 the hour preceding dewfall, before the Eobin and the 

 Veery begin their evening hymn. At that hour, assem- 

 bled in company, they might seem to be practising a 

 cotillon on the wing, each one singing to his own move- 

 ment as he sallies forth and returns, and nothing can 

 exceed their apparent merriment. 



The Bobolink begins his morning song just at sunrise, 

 at the time when the Robin, having sung from earliest 

 daybreak, is near the close of his performance. Nature 

 seems to have provided that the serious parts of her 

 musical entertainment in the morning shall first be heard, 

 and that the lively and comic strains shall follow them. 

 In the evening this order is reversed, and after the com- 

 edy is concluded Nature lulls us to repose by the mellow 

 notes of the Vesper-Bird, and the pensive and still more 

 melodious strains of the solitary Thrushes. 



In pleasant shining weather the Bobolink seldom flies 



