THE PERcHING Birps. 127 
and Thoreau has fixed the bird’s song securely in our 
lasting literature, saying of these birds as he heard 
them near Concord, “and the meadow is all bespat- 
tered with melody.” Their history is a short story: 
they winter in the south, and coming north in 
spring, scatter over the country, nesting for the most 
part in New England and beyond; but a good many 
hang back when they reach the Middle States and 
are here all summer. Then the males are black and 
white, or appear so, and are full of song. Certainly 
of a bright May morning it is worth a long walk to 
hear them. This song as summer wanes dwindles 
“chink,” but this is clear, metallic, and 
when uttered while the bird is flying high overhead 
can be heard for a long distance. By the close of 
summer, too, there is another change, and the bright 
black-and-white suit is changed to a yellow-brown 
one; and now the birds southward bound are bobo- 
links no longer, but reed-birds until they reach the 
Carolinas, and then they are rice-birds. The poetry 
is all gone when the birds come back in August: 
they have left their music behind them, and are now 
so prosy that the melody of May mornings is for- 
gotten and we are ready to eat the little fellows. It 
is hard to imagine any one cruel enough to harm a 
bobolink in May, but it is more difficult to imagine 
any one capable of resisting in September a reed-bird 
upon toast. 
The Cow-bird, which is perhaps best known as 
Sheep Blackbird and sometimes as Cow-bunting, is a 
curious creature. The male bird is bronzed and dark 
blue, and has some animation when it bubbles over 
to a mere 
