The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1869-10-27
The 1sObOIimlS.
BY THOMAS NJ. BREWER.

BY THOMAS NJ. BREWER.
Always excepting the Mocking Bird, whose
wonderful powers place it so far above and
beyond comparison, our most popular and well
come musician is the Bobolinll. Original
natural, and never initiative, its song is in the
highest degree eXquisitely musical. In the
variety Of Its notes. the rapidity with which they
are uttered, and the touching pathos, beauty
and melody of their tone and expression, they
are unequalIed by those of any other bird to
which our ears have listened. We
certainly have nothing among the
varied songs of our feathered musicians
of America that resembles or even approaches it,
In the earliest approach of spring. in Louis
lana, when small focks of male bobOlinks make
their first appearance, they are said, by Mr..
Audubon, to sing in concert, and their song thus
given is at once exceedingly novel, interesting,
and striking Uttered with volubility that
almost borders upon the burlesque and the
ludicrous, the whole effect is greatly heightened
by the singular and striking manner in which,
first one singer, and then another, one following
the other until all have joined their voices, take
up the note and strike in after the leader has set
the first example and given the signal. In this
manner sometimes party of thirty or forty
bobolinks will begin, one after the other, until
the whole party unite in producing an extra
ordinary medley, to which no pen can do JUS
tice, but which is described as very pleasant to
listen to. Suddenly the music ceases with
suddenness not less striking and extraordinary.
These concerts are repeated from time to time,
usually as often the flock aight.
By the time these birds have reached in their
spring migrations, the fortieth parallel of lati-
tude, they no longer move in large ilocks, but
have begun to separate into small parties, and
fnally into pairs Here in New England the
boboink treats us to no such concerts as those
described by Audubon, where many voices join
in creating their peculiar jingling melody. When
they first appear here, usually after the middle of
May, they in small parties, composed of
either sex, absorbed in their courtships. and of
course overhowng with song. When two or
three male bobolinks, decked out in their gayest
spring apparel, are paying their attentions to
the same dTab-colOred demOiselle, the contrast
of whose sober brown apparel is striking,
their performances are quite entertaining. Each
seems to endeavor to outSlng the other. The
keeping closely to the ground, but always
followed attended by the several asp-
rants for their affection. After a con-
test often quite exciting, these rivalries
are adjusted, the rejected suitors are driven
off by their more fortunate competitor, and the
happy pair take possession of their new home.
In these love quarrels their song appears to the
greatest advantage. They pour out incessantly
their strains of quaint but enhancing music,
now on the ground, now on the wing, now on
| the top of a fence, low bush, or the swaying
| stalk of plant that bends with their weight.
| The great length of their song the immense
number of short and variable notes of which it
is composed, the volubility and confused rapidity
| with which they are poured forth-no human
| ear being able to separate one note from the
| other-the quaint and eccentric breaks in the
midst of which we detect the words ''bob-o-link
| so distinctly enuncated, unite to form a general
result to which we can find no parallel in any OF
| the musical performances of our other song
| birds. 1t is at once unique and charming
| production. Nuttall speaks of their song as
| 'monotonous, which we consider neither true
nor consistent with his own description of it,
| To us they are ever wonderfully full of variety
| pathos, and beauty.
When their love contests are ended and the
| happy pair take possession of their allotted
| meadow and prepare to construct their nest and
rear their family, then we see the male bird
| lowering in the air over the spot where his
homely wife is broodlng over her charge, anC
all the while warbliug forth his incessant and
| happy love-song, or else swinging on some slen
der stalk or weed that bends under him, anG
ever overfowing with song and eloquent with
melody AS his domestic cares and parenta
responsibilities increase, his song grows less anC
less frequent, then degenerates into a few shor
notes, and at last altogether ceases. His five
children in due time assume the development
of mature birds, and all wear the sober garb o
their mother. And now there comes n mar
Vellous change over our once gaily-attred mu
sIcian. His beautiful dress of glossy white au(
black, so striking in its contrast, changes will
an almost magical rapidity into hOmely brown
ard drab, until he is in no wise distinguishable
either in dress or in nOte from wife or children
In the North where the bobolink breeds, h'
never molests the crops, but confines his fooC
almost entirely to insects or to the seeds o
Valueess weeds, in the consumption of whiCl
he confers benefit rather than harm. At the
South he is accused of lnjuring the young whea
as he passes nOrthward in his spring migrations
and OF preying upon the rice plantations on hi
return. They appear, in almost innumerab
nocks, in the middle of August, among th
marshes of Pennsylvania, where they arr
known as reed birds Two weeks later the.
begin to swarm among the rice plantations
South Carolina, where they are generally know
as the rice birds. In October they again pas
on southward, making another halt in tn
West Indies Thsgs they feed upon the seed
cessively fat, and are known in Jamaica a
the butter bird. Everywhere they are sougl
out by sportsmen and shot in Immense nun
hers for the table of the epicure. More recent
thew have been found to feed freely upon th
Larvae of the dreaded cotton-worm, and thu
render great service to the planter'--AaahI'