durable as gray and black and brown. 

 Though not a slave to fashion, he does 

 freshen up a bit in the spring and puts 

 on a new cap of chestnut, not to be 

 too old fogyish. But he believes in 

 wearing courting clothes ail the year 

 round. Young chippies put on striped 

 bibs until they are out of the nursery, 

 but the old folks like a plain shirt front. 



No such notion has the barn swal- 

 low. He believes in family equality, 

 even in the matter of clothes; and hav- 

 ing been born in a pretty and becoming 

 suit, wears it all the time. When the 

 cinquefoil fingers the grass, you may 

 look for his swallow-tailed coat in the 

 air; and if the April sun strikes its 

 steel-blue broadcloth, and discloses 

 the bright chestnut muffler and the 

 pale-tinted vest, you will rejoice that 

 old fashions prevail in swallow-land. 

 These swift-flying birds have some- 

 thing higher to think about than chang- 

 ing their clothes. 



It seems otherwise with some birds 

 of the meadow. That gay dandy, the 

 bobolink, for instance, lays himself out 

 to make a sensation in the breast of his 

 fair one. When he started on his 

 southern trip last autumn, he wore a 

 traveling-suit of buff and brown, not 

 unlike Mistress Bobolink's and the lit- 

 tle Links'. No doubt he knew the dan- 

 ger lurking in the reeds of Pennsylva- 

 nia and the rice-fields of Carolina, and 

 hoped to escape observation while fat- 

 tening there. In the spring, if fortu- 

 nate enough to have escaped the gun- 

 ner, he flies back to his northern home, 

 "dressed to kill," in human phrase, hap- 

 pily not, in bird language. Robert 

 o'Lincoln is a funny fellow disguised 

 as a bishop. Richard Steele, the rol- 

 licking horse-guardsman, posing as a 

 Christian hero, is a human parallel. 

 With a black vest buttoned to the 

 throat, a black cap and choker, bobo- 

 link's front is as solemn as the end- 

 man's at a minstrel show. But what a 

 coat! Buff, white and black in eccentric 

 combination; and at the nape of the 

 neck, a yellow posy, that deepens with 

 the buttercups and fades almost as 

 soon. Bobby is original, but he con- 

 forms to taste, and introduces no dis- 

 cordant color-tone into his field of but- 

 tercups and clover. In his ecstatic 



flight he seems to have caught a field 

 flower on his back; and if a golden- 

 hearted daisy were to speak, surely it 

 would be in such a joyous tongue. 



A red, red rose never blooms in a 

 clover meadow, and the grosbeak does 

 not go there for his chief spring adorn- 

 ment. Red roses do bloom all the 

 year, though none so lovely as the rose 

 of June; and so the grosbeak wears his 

 distinctive flower at his throat the 

 round year, but it is loveliest in earl}' 

 summer. I do not know a prettier 

 fashion — do you? — for human kind or 

 bird, than a flower over the heart. I 

 fancy that a voice is sweeter when a 

 breast is thus adorned. If ever the 

 rich passion of a red, red rose finds ex- 

 pression, it is in the caressing, exultant 

 love-song of the rose-breasted gros- 

 beak. The one who inspires it looks 

 like an overgrown sparrow; but gros- 

 beak knows the difference, if you do 

 not. If that wise parent should ever 

 be in doubt as to his own son, who 

 always favors the mother at the start, 

 he has but to lift up the youngster's 

 wings, and the rose-red lining will show 

 at once that he is no common sparrow. 



That pretty fashion of a contrast in 

 linings is not confined to the grosbeak. 

 The flicker, too, has his wings deli- 

 cately lined with — a scrap of sunset 

 sky. I do not know whetherhe found his 

 material there or lower down in a 

 marsh of marigolds; but when he flies 

 over your head into the elm tree and 

 plies his trade, you will see that he is 

 fitly named, golden-winged wood- 

 pecker. He makes no fuss over his 

 spring clothes. A fresh red tie, which, 

 oddly enough, he wears on the back of 

 his neck, a retinting of his bright lin- 

 ing, a new gloss on his spotted vest 

 and striped coat, and his toilet is made. 

 Madame Flicker is so like her spouse 

 that }'ou would be puzzled to tell them 

 apart, but for his black mustache. 



The flicker fashion of dressing alike 

 may come from advanced notions of 

 equality; whatever its source, the pur- 

 ple finch is of another mind. He sac- 

 rifices much, almost his own identity, 

 to love of variety; and yet he is never 

 purple. His name simply perpetuates 

 a blunder for which no excuse can be 

 offered. Pokeberry is his prevailing 



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