198 Bees and Buckwheat 



birds. The bluebirds are singing, but in a 

 half-hearted, melancholy way, reminding me 

 of an old man who spent his time when over 

 ninety in humming " Auld Lang Syne." Be- 

 fore the buckwheat has lost its freshness these 

 birds will all be gone, but at what time the 

 bluebirds part company with the others I do 

 not know. They certainly do not regularly 

 migrate, as do the others. There was a colony 

 of them that lived for years in and about my 

 barn, and one was as sure to see them in 

 January as in June. No English sparrows 

 could have been more permanently fixed. 



When the buckwheat is ripe and the fields 

 and meadows are brown, there will be other 

 birds to take their place. Tree-sparrows from 

 Canada and white-throats from New England 

 will make these same fields merry with music, 

 and the tangle about the old fence will ring 

 with gladness. But it is August still, and why 

 anticipate ? High overhead there are black 

 specks in the air, and we can mark their course, 

 as they pass, by the bell-like chink-chink that 

 comes floating earthward. It is one of the 

 sounds that recall the past rather than refer 

 to the present. The reed-bird of to-day was 

 a bobolink last May. His roundelay that told 



