BIRDS AND POETS 19 



ing. But I am inclined to believe that the males 

 think only of themselves and of outshining each 

 other, and not at all of the approbation of their 

 mates, as, in an analogous case in a higher species, 

 it is well known who the females dress for, and 

 whom they want to kill with envy ! 



I know of no other song-bird that expresses so 

 much self- consciousness and vanity, and comes so 

 near being an ornithological coxcomb. The red- 

 bird, the yellowbird, the indigo-bird, the oriole, the 

 cardinal grosbeak, and others, all birds of brilliant 

 plumage and musical ability, seem quite uncon- 

 scious of self, and neither by tone nor act challenge 

 the admiration of the beholder. 



By the time the bobolink reaches the Potomac, 

 in September, he has degenerated into a game-bird 

 that is slaughtered by tens of thousands in the 

 marshes. I think the prospects now are of his 

 gradual extermination, as gunners and sportsmen 

 are clearly on the increase, while the limit of the 

 bird's productivity in the North has no doubt been 

 reached long ago. There are no more meadows to 

 be added to his domain there, while he is being 

 waylaid and cut off more and more on his return to 

 the South. It is gourmand eat gourmand, until in 

 half a century more I expect the blithest and mer- 

 riest of our meadow songsters will have disappeared 

 before the rapacity of human throats. 



But the poets have had a shot at him in good 

 time, and have preserved some of his traits. Bry- 

 ant's poem on this subject does not compare with 



