236 BOBOLINK. 



since the Robin and Song Sparrow announced spring's atrival. Even during the last week 

 of April a heavy snow-storm may sweep over the extreme northern parts of our country. 

 With the beginning of May the wild flowers are becoming more abundant, and each 

 day brings us new arrivals from the South. The familiar Catbird, the famous Rose- 

 breasted Grosbeak, the flame-colored Baltimore Oriole, and the most brilliant of all our 

 birds, the Scarlet Tanager, are usually present by May 9. At this time the plum and 

 cherry trees are in full bloom, and a week or ten days later the apple trees are like one 

 sheet of rosy and white color. Thousands of ekgant and sprightly Wood Warblers 

 celebrate their annual spring festival among the flowering trees. How joyfully do they 

 fly, dart, and hop about, and how cheery sound their strains ! 



This is the time of revelry of the Bobolink. In the grand concert of Nature, late 

 in May and throughout June, no other performer is so well-known and beloved than 

 this happiest bird of our spring. Coming "amid the pomp and fragrance of the season," 

 the life of these birds seems all sensibility and enjoyment, all song and sunshine. On a 

 warm and sunny day we hear their merry music from all sides in the low meadows. 

 During the night they arrived from their winter home in the far interior of South America. 

 And what glad tidings do they bring! Spring is really here at last, spring in all its 

 glory, brilliancy, perfume, and music! The beautiful males. in their jaunty attire of deep 

 black, white, and bufi", are bubbling over with exhileration and happiness. They are the 

 merriest of all our birds, ever in motion, ever rollicking and frolicking and singing, ever 

 passing to and fro in easy flight. When half a dozen or more are sporting about over 

 the fresh and sweet meadows, enamelled by countless flowers, and when the air is full 

 of their tinkling and enchanting song, words are powerless to describe the impression 

 of such activity and music. There is no plaintive strain in the whole performance. 

 Each sound is fuU of glee and hilarity, full of sweetness and charming beauty. It seems 

 to be the mission of this exquisite songster to pour joy, hope, peace, happiness, and 

 exhilaration into our often so weary and depressed souls. 



In the days of my boyhood the Bobolink was very abundant in the meadows 

 surrounding our little lake. At that time I had the same feeling which one of our 

 greatest writers so vividly describes:* 



" "Of all the birds of our groves and meadows, the Bobolink was the envy of my 

 boyhood. He crossed my path in the sweetest weather and the sweetest season of the 

 year, when all Nature called to the fields, and the rural feeling throbbed in every bosom, 

 but when I, luckless urchin ! was doomed to be mewed up during the livelong day in 

 that purgatory of boyhood, a school room. It seemed as if the little varlet mocked at 

 me as he flew by in frill song, and sought to taunt me his happier lot. Oh, how I envied 

 him! No lesson, no task, no hateftil school; nothing but holiday, frolic, green fields, 

 and fine weather." 



I often counted a dozen or more singing Bobolinks in one meadow. Most of them 

 were passing to and fro in easy flight. Others were perched on the tops of bushes or 

 long flaunting weeds, and as they rose and sunk with the breeze, poured forth a 

 "succession of rich tinkling notes, crowding one upon another like the outpouring melody 

 of the Shylark, and possessing the same rapturous character." Frequently one descends 



* Washington Irving. 



