238 BOBOLINK. 



at once a unique and a charming production. Nuttall speaks of their song as mono- 

 tonous, which is neither true nor consistent with his own description of it. To other 

 ears they seem ever wonderfully full of variety, pathos, and beauty." 



As already remarked, the Bobolink is one of our latest arrivals. I never noticed 

 one of them in eastern Wisconsin before May 11, and never before May 9 in northern 

 Illinois. Usually the merry assemblages of these birds do not appear in full force before 

 May 15 or 20 in Wisconsin. In Texas I have observed them only once during the migra- 

 tion, but I have frequently heard their tinkling call-notes during the night when they passed 

 in low flight over the city of Houston. I heard them more frequently during the fall than 

 during the spring migration. One day late in April, while rambling about in a small 

 prairie near the West Yegua, I heard quite a number of throats pour out one brief, 

 hilarious, tuneful jubilee. I recognized these familiar sounds at once, and when looking 

 skyward I detected the gay horde pushing northward. On an isolated live-oak the 

 whole flock mounted, and, w^hile many w^ere rocking themselves in the exterior branches, 

 others w^ere soaring through the air and singing their merry strains. Although very 

 sweet, this was not the full, familiar, and loud song, which I was accustomed to in 

 my earliest childhood. Though vely fascinating, there w^as a strange remoteness, some- 

 thing very peculiar about all the sounds. These northward moving flocks seemed to 

 scent the fragrant meadows afar off and shouted forth "snatches of their song in anti- 

 cipation." 



The haunts of the Bobolink are invariably low meadows and grassy prairies. 

 They are said to breed in New England in clover fields and to banter and chant in apple 

 orchards, but this I have never observed. Where one pair settles we may find others in 

 close proximity. In the days of my youth, when these hilarious songsters were much 

 more abundant than they are now, all the low meadows were resounding by their 

 merry songs. Frequently as many as a dozen sailed through, the air in full song. The 

 impression of such a concert during a warm and sunny June day is a deep and lasting 

 one. It must be heard in order to be fully understood and appreciated. The plainly 

 colored, quiet, and retired female selects a place for her nest in a small depression of the 

 soil, while her gay partner is hovering above her in the air or is perched on a slender 

 weed-stem which bends under his weight, all the while overflowing with song and 

 eloquent with melody. The feathers of his neck and head are mostly ruffled, and the 

 wings are somewhat spread while rolUcking and singing. The nest is exceedingly diffi- 

 cult to find. It is always built in the open meadow or prairie, without so much as a 

 bush, a perennial herb, or a tuft of grass to protect it or to mark its site. "Bobolink 

 nests are concealed in the luxuriant herbage of meadows with such instinctive care for 

 their safety as to be difficult to find except by accident, as when disclosed by the scythe 

 or the mower. In the western country the sajring goes that an Indian can hide behind 

 three blades of grass ; and the hiding capabilities of a tuft of herbage are never better 

 displayed than in screening a Bobolink's nest, not only from casual observation, but 

 from patient search. The female is said to employ some artifice in arranging the spears 

 of grass about the structure, as still further protection, and she is careful in going and 

 coming, threading her way shyly through the herbage, into which she flies at some 

 distance usually from the cherished spot. As the males at such times are singing any- 



