OUR FOREST CHORISTERS. 199 



THE PERSEVERING SONGSTER. 



1. A curious circumstance, quite aside from the ordi- 

 nary dictates of instinct, occurred in the case of a young 

 bobolink, in the family of the Rev. J. W. Turner, of Great 

 Barrington, Massachusetts. He was caged at first apart 

 from a pair of canaries, which were in another cage in the 

 same room. The bobolink never sung at all from Juno 

 to December, until he was permitted to share in the same 

 cage the civilities and sympathies of his neighbors, the 

 canaries, who had been so long entertaining him with 

 their sweet and unwearied strains. When admitted to the 

 same cage with them, he tried most assiduously to learn 

 their song, at first, however, for a long time, with miser- 

 able success enough. He would stand and watch them 

 with an rgony of attention, and then try to imitate their 

 notes. He would swell out his throat, and stretch up his 

 neck as they did, and then, with a violent effort, try to 

 sound one note, which, in spite of all his zeal and labor, 

 proved to be a mere rough scream. 



2. At this humiliating failure he would be so provoked 

 and enraged that he would fly at his inoffensive and well- 

 meaning mates and teachers, and peck them most unmer- 

 cifully, and drive them from their perch. So he did for 

 three or four weeks, before any apparent progress was 

 made in his studies. But his perseverance was equal to 

 the difficulties he had to overcome. At length he could 

 sound one note well, and one only. And so he continued 

 for some six weeks longer, learning one note at a time, 

 till he bad finally completed the whole canary song, and 

 could sing it to perfection. Then he would sing with 

 them in perfect harmony and perfect time, always closing 

 at the exact note with them. 



3. It is also a little singular that, although through all 



