136 T'u:elve Months With 



his nest, Mr. Burroughs says: "If I were a bird, 

 in building my nest I should follow the example 

 of the bobolink, placing it in the midst of a broad 

 meadow where there was no spear of grass or 

 flower or growth unlike another to mark its site." 



His thoughtless, light-hearted, devil-may-care 

 spirit, from which you would scarcely suspect the 

 strategy he displays in secreting his nest, is inva- 

 riably the subject of the poems dedicated to him. 



For example, Alexander McLachlan: 



"How you tumble 'mong the hay, 

 Romping all the summer's day; 

 Now upon the wing all over 

 In and out among the clover — 

 Far too happy e'er to think — 

 Bobolink! Bobolink!" 



And Lowell: 



"Meanwhile that devil-may-care, the bobolink, 

 Remembering duty, in mid-quaver stops 

 Just ere he sweeps o'er rapture's tremulous brink, 

 And 'twixt the winrows most demurely drops, 

 A decorous bird of business, who provides 

 For his brown mate and fledgings six besides, 

 And looks from right to left, a farmer mid his crops." 



By August the bobolinks have either given up 

 their songs, or their few notes are so broken and 

 scattering as to be scarcely recognizable, and before 

 September comes they have all departed for the 



