BIRD PARADISE 97 



rives or leaves his Northern haunts anywhere 

 near the right time. Someway, however, he 

 does it and makes little or no mistake. I under- 

 stand that they pass the winter well down in the 

 Gulf states, getting entirely away from the snow 

 and cold. I never have known one to stay here 

 through the winter, as some of our other birds oc- 

 casionally do. I conclude from this fact that the 

 fellow has no resources in case he is left stranded 

 in his Northern home. Even in the summer he 

 seems at times in a sort of quandary as to what is 

 the best thing for him to do. 



Whoever writes, or attempts to write, the story 

 of the bobolink will find a task on his hands that 

 never can be quite all told. I have known the 

 fellow nearly seventy years and each successive 

 season he has brought something new to be 

 recorded. This year he postponed his coming a 

 little later than usual, but it was all the same to 

 the rollicking fellow. He came with the genuine 

 bobolink flourish of trumpets, not a note missing 

 in his cheery song. It may have been that his 

 trolley line was a little out of order or something 

 may have miscarried in his calculations, for he 

 arrived in our hill country fully an hour after 



