The Lay of the Band 
the heartless demand that both species, once very 
abundant, are now almost extinct. 
Bobolink is another special case. He has two com- 
plete moults a year. Now, as I write, I hear him 
singing over the meadow, —a jet black, white, and 
cream-buff lover, most strikingly adorned. His wife, 
down in the grass, looks as little like him as a spar- 
row looks like a blackbird. After the breeding season 
he moults, changing color so completely that he and 
his wife and children all look alike, all like sparrows. 
They even lose their name now, flying south under 
the assumed name of “ reedbirds.” 
Bobolink passes the winter in Brazil, and at the 
coming of spring, just before the long northward 
journey begins, he moults again; but you would 
hardly know it to look at him, for, strangely enough, 
he is not black and white, but still colored like a 
sparrow as he was in the fall. Apparently he is. 
Look at him more closely, however, and you will find 
the brownish yellow color is all caused by a veil of 
fine fringes hanging from the edges of the feathers. 
Underneath are the black and white and cream-buff. 
He starts northward, and by the time he reaches 
Massachusetts the fringe veil is worn off and the 
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