76 STARLIGHT AND SUNSHINE. 



felicitous effort within my knowledge of similar descriptive litera- 

 ture. What keenness of perception, subtle appreciation of tone 

 quality, and literary art are embodied in that remarkable para- 

 graph! How does it revive that eager anticipation quickened 

 by the first notes of the song a prelude promise which Bob 

 never fulfils that 



Single note, so sweet and low, 

 Like a full heart's overflow; 

 But which we fail to hear again." 



" I hear the note of the bobolink concealed in the top of an 

 apple-tree behind me. Though this bird's full strain is ordinarily 

 somewhat trivial, this one seems meditating a strain as yet un- 

 heard in meadow or orchard. Paulo majora cauamus. He is 

 just touching the string of his theorbo, his glassichord, his water- 

 organ and one or two notes globe themselves and fall in liquid 

 bubbles from his tuning throat. It is as if he touched his harp 

 within a vase of liquid melody, and when he lifted it out the 

 notes fell like bubbles from the trembling strings. Methinks they 

 are the most liquidly sweet and melodious sounds I ever heard. 

 They are as refreshing to my ear as the first distant tinkling and 

 gurgling of a rill to the thirsty man. Oh never advance further 

 in your art, never let us hear your full strain, sir! But away he 

 launches, and the meadow is all bespattered with melody." 



It matters not that the English dictionary affords us no ti- 

 dings of the " glassichord " or " water-organ." The dictionary is 

 inadequate to the occasion, for these are the veritable instruments 

 of the bobolink prelude as truly as that last line is the epitome of 

 the musical cascade which follows. 



But it was reserved for Florence Percy to give us our rol- 

 licking, "devil-may-care Bob" as we all know him an inter- 

 preter who, presenting the bird under the character of " the tell- 

 tale," has infused the very mischief of that "wild and saucy song" 

 into her page. Who that has noted that suggestive, self-suffused, 

 ecstatic strut of the gay Romeo, as with drooping wings and 



