BIRDS OF KANSAS. 393 



small parties, composed of either sex, absorbed in their court- 

 ships and overflowing with song. When two or three male 

 Bobolinks, decked out in their gayest spring apparel, are paying 

 their attentions to the same drab-colored female, contrasting so 

 strikingly in her sober brown dress, their performances are quite 

 entertaining, each male endeavoring to outsing the others. The 

 female appears coy and retiring, keeping closely to the ground, 

 but always attended by the several aspirants for her affection. 

 After a contest, often quite exciting, the rivalries are adjusted, 

 the rejected suitors are driven off by their more fortunate com- 

 petitor, and the happy pair begin to put in order a new home. 

 It is in these love quarrels that their song appears to the greatest 

 advantage. They pour out incessantly their strains of quaint 

 but charming music, now on the ground, now on the wing, now 

 on the top of a fence, a low bush or a swaying stalk of a plant 

 that bends with their weight. The great length of their song, 

 the immense number of short, variable notes of which it is com- 

 posed, the volubility and confused rapidity with which they are 

 poured forth, the eccentric breaks, in the midst of which we 

 detect the words 'Bob-o-link' so distinctly enunciated, unite 

 to form a general result to which we can find no parallel in any 

 of the musical performances of our other song birds. It is at 

 once a unique and a charming production. Nuttall speaks of 

 their song as monotonous, which is neither true nor consistent 

 with his own description of it. To other ears they seem ever 

 wonderfully full of variety, pathos and beauty. 



"When their contests are ended, and the mated pair take 

 possession of their selected meadow, and prepare to construct 

 their nest and rear their family, then we may find the male bird 

 hovering in the air over the spot where his homely partner is 

 brooding over her charge. All this while he is warbling forth 

 his incessant and happy love song; or else he is swinging on 

 some slender stalk or weed that bends under him, ever over- 

 flowing with song and eloquent with melody. As domestic 

 cares and paternal responsibilities increase, his song becomes 

 less and less frequent. After a while it has degenerated into a 

 few short notes, and at length ceases altogether. The young in 



