BOBOLINK. 



Female marked and streaked like a sparrow; brown 

 streaked with buff above; head dark sepia with a central 

 line of green-buff; lower parts pale yellowish buff graded 

 to buff-white. Nest in the tall grass on the ground, 

 woven of dried grasses. The birds are very cautious in 

 approaching and leaving the nest, always walking to 

 and from it a little distance, after alighting or before 

 taking wing. Egg gray-white of a bluish cast, speckled 

 with dark brown. The bird is unevenly distributed 

 throughout the eastern United States, and extends west 

 to Utah and Montana. It migrates through Florida and 

 across the West Indies to South America, usually via 

 Cuba and Yucatan. 



The Bobolink is indeed a great singer, but the latter 

 part of his song is a species of musical fireworks. He 

 begins bravely enough with a number of well-sustained 

 tones, but presently he accelerates his time, loses track 

 of his motive, and goes to pieces in a burst of musical 

 scintillations. It is a mad, reckless song-fantasia, an 

 outbreak of pent-up, irrepressible glee. The difficulty 

 in either describing or putting upon paper such music is 

 insurmountable. One can follow the singer through 

 the first few whistled bars, and then, figuratively 

 speaking, he lets down the bars and stampedes. I have 

 never been^able to "sort out" the tones as they passed 

 at this break-neck speed. Others who desired to record 

 the song have found the thing impracticable. Mr. 

 Cheney writes: "We must wait for some interpreter 

 with the sound-catching skill of a Blind Tom and the 

 phonograph combined, before we may hope to fasten 

 the kinks and twists of this live music-box." 



There is, however, not a small part of the Bobolink's 

 music which is comprehensible. The first part of the 

 song usually carries with it a suggestion of the waltz, in 

 tolerably clear whistles set to three-four or nine-eight 

 time. The following annotation, a good illustration of 

 this ryhthm, I obtained at a spot called " Paradise," near 

 Smith College, Northampton, Mass.*: 



* All of this Bobolink music is, of necessity, written two octave* 

 lower than the bird sings. 



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