Quail. Bob-White 



Bob White 



There's a plump little chap in a speckled coat, 

 And he sits on the zigzag rails remote, 

 Where he whistles at breezy, bracing morn, 

 Where the buckwheat is ripe, and stacked the corn: 

 "Bob White! Bob White! Bob White!" 



Is he hailing some comrade as blithe as he? 

 . Now I wonder where Robert White can be ! 

 O'er the billows of gold and amber grain 

 There is no one in sight but hark again : 

 "Bob White! Bob White! Bob White!" 



Ah! I see why he calls; in the stubbles there 

 Hide his plump little wife and babies fair! 

 So contented is he, and so proud of the same, 

 That he wants all the world to know his name, 

 "Bob White! Bob White! Bob White!" 



SELECTED. 

 REDPOLL. REDPOLL LINNET 



Erelong, amid the cold powdery snow, as it were a fruit 

 of the season, will come twittering a flock of delicate, 

 crimson-tinged birds, lesser redpolls, to sport and feed 

 on the seeds and buds just ripe for them on the sunny 

 side of a wood, shaking down the powdery snow there 

 in their cheerful feeding, as if it were high midsummer 

 to them. 



THOREAU. Autumn. 14 



114 



