BOBOLINK. id 



this wild thing's gay humor. How it sets one's heart in tune with 

 the bird's unbridled glee to watch his antics and listen to his song, 

 that quaint tinkling carol, that roundelay of rippling laughter, that 

 chanted mirth, the merriest music of the field. 



But if Robert does dress in motley array and acts (sometimes) like 

 a fool, he is not always quite so much of a fool as he looks ; not 

 always so flippant and silly as his frolic and his garb suggest. His 

 treatment of his mate and their young preclude censure and deserve 

 praise, for it is of the best, and proves Robert to be possessed of a 

 fine character, as bird character goes. 



I admit that his courtship is a very funny performance, as funny 

 in its way as many of the grotesque extravagances of the comic 

 stage. But you cannot watch the bird closely without discovering 

 that Robert knows what he is about ; that there is nmch method in 

 his buflFoonery, and while merry because he cannot help being merry, 

 much of his hilarity is produced for the diversion of that little bird 

 in quiet brown, with simple, unobtrusive manners, that Robert of 

 Lincoln is doing his level best to win for a mate. 



Perhaps the use I have made of the word courtship may not be 

 approved by all my readers. It is a fact, none the less, that as a 

 rule the feathered belles are wooed and won very much as maidens 

 are, and of the two the coquettes of the field, if less artful, are 

 even more tantalizing than their sisters of the ballroom. 



The female bobolink is extremely coy, and meets the advances of 

 her wooer with such cold indifference and appearance of irritation 

 as to suggest positive scorn. But Robert of Lincoln is as cour- 

 ageous and persistent as the most exacting coquette could desire, 

 and he patiently submits to the snubbing and continues to press his 

 suit with a brave determination that is worthy of more ai)preciative 

 recognition. Indeed he affects such playful disregard for her 

 scorn that a witness of this odd wooing is apt to charge Robert with 

 a lack of spirit, a charge to which the bird's usual flippancy lends 

 credence. 



But Robert is very much in earnest, and he knows all about these 

 coy damsels, and having made up his mind to win for a mate that 

 particular brown belle, win her he will. She turns her back upon 

 him — ^he hops to the front ; she flies off — he follows ; she pecks at 



