NATURE AND HER HARMONIES. 
11 
when, on rising among from the grass and flying away from 
the observer, they display the pure black and white of their 
wings and body." 
That love-song of Rob's has been greatly admired, and 
several efforts have been made by distinguished amateurs to 
set its music to words. 
Nobody has made much of it, except our Irving, and as 
we cannot quote him here, we shall not attempt to do it our- 
self! — for the truth is, Rob is such a rattling, voluble, reck- 
less, mad, melodious ranter, that an attempt to translate him 
is almost out of the question — indeed, it would take a folio 
of MS. to give all the little cataract of tender epithets that 
pours in liquid gushes from his blithe throat, as he goes flut- 
tering and wagging up and down from one tall mullien top 
to another ! 
But Robert is in love, and sober people should not judge 
him hardly — if they loved any one heartily as he loves Mrs. 
Mary Linkum — hid away yonder in the grass, brooding over 
those five speckled eggs — and their hearts were as light as 
his, they would be garrulous too — thot is all ! Ah, Bobby ! 
Bobby ! we fear you are but a graceless scamp at last — to 
think ! that after such a mirthful life of musical lunacy, you 
should turn freebooter before the year is out, and get your- 
self shot at. Mr. Audubon tells a sad tale of your after do- 
ings. We have misgivings you're a dissipated, rollicking 
bird, at best, Rob ! 
" No sooner have the young left the nest, than they and 
their parents associate with other families, so that by the end 
of July large flocks begin to appear. They seem to come 
from every portion of the Eastern States, and already resort 
to the borders of the rivers and estuaries to roost. Their 
songs have ceased, their males have lost their gay livery, and 
have assumed the yellow hue of the females and young, al- 
though the latter are more fl.rm in their tints than the old 
males, and the whole begin to return southward, slowly and 
with a single clinic^ sufficient, however, to give intimation of 
