234 
RURAL HOURS. 
light draws on ; our American rabbit also shuns the day ; that 
pest of the farm-yard, the skunk, with the weasels, rove about on 
their mischievous errands at night. Some of those animals whose 
furs are most valued, as the ermine and sable, are nocturnal ; so 
is the black-cat, and the rare Avolverine also. Even our domestic 
cattle, the cows and horses, may frequently be seen grazing in the 
pleasant summer nights. 
Monday, Qth. — Bright, warm day. Thermometer 84. 
Heard an oriole among some elms on the skirts of the village 
this morning ; it is rather late for them. We generally see little 
of them after J uly ; when they have reared their family, and the 
young have come to days of discretion, these brilliant birds seem 
to become more shy ; they are very apt to leave the villages about 
that time for the woods. Some few, however, occasionally remain 
later. But toward the last of this month they already take their 
flight southward. 
o 
A change has come over the bobolinks also — in July they lose 
those cheerful, pleasant notes with which they enliven the fields 
earlier in the season ; it is true they are still seen fluttering over 
the meadows from time to time, w^ith a peculiar cry of their own, 
and the young males acquire a pretty note of their own, which 
they sing in the morning, but they are already thinking of mov- 
ing. They are very cheerful birds, and one misses them when 
they disappear. We seldom see them here in those large flocks 
common elsewhere ; those about us are probably all natives of 
our own meadows. They travel southward very gradually, visit- 
ing first, in large parties, the wild rice-grounds of Pennsylvania 
and Maryland, where they remain some weeks ; in October, they 
