RICE BUNTING, OR BOB-O-LINK. 189 
deplored with urgent and incessant cries, as they hover 
fearfully around the intentional or accidental intruder. 
They appear sometimes inclined to have a second brood, 
for which preparation is made while they are yet engaged 
in rearing the first ; but the male generally loses his 
musical talent about the end of the first week in July ; 
from which time, or somewhat earlier, his nuptial or pied 
dress begins gradually to be laid aside for the humble 
garb of the female. The whole, both young and old, then 
appear nearly in the same songless livery, uttering only a 
chink of alarm when surprised in feeding on the grass 
seeds, or the crops of grain which still remain abroad. 
When the voice of the Bob-o-link begins to fail, with the 
progress of the exhausting moult, he flits over the fields 
in a restless manner, and merely utters a broken 1 bob’lee , 
’bob’lee, or with his songless mate, at length, a ’ iveet ’ meet , 
b’lect b’leet , and a noisy and disagreeable cackling chirp. 
At the early dawn of day, while the tuneful talent of the 
species is yet unabated, the effect of their awakening and 
faultering voices from a wide expanse of meadows, is 
singular and grand. The sounds mingle like the noise 
of a distant torrent, which alternately subsides and rises 
on the breeze, as the performers awake or relapse into 
rest ; it finally becomes more distinct and tumultuous, till 
with the opening day it assumes the intelligible charac- 
ter of their ordinary song. The young males, towards 
the close of July, having nearly acquired their perfect 
character, utter also in the morning, from the trees which 
border their favorite marshy meadows, a very agreeable 
and continuous low warble, more like that of the Yellow- 
bird than the usual song of the species ; in fact, they 
appear now in every respect as Finches, and only become 
jingling musicians, when robed in their pied dress as 
Icteri ! 
