Their rich and varied strains make the air fairly quiver. We boys
often tried to interpret the wild ringing melody and put it into
words.
After the arrival of the thrushes came the bobolinks, gushing,
gurgling, inexhaustible fountains of song, pouring forth floods of
sweet notes over the broad Fox River meadows in wonderful variety and
volume, crowded and mixed beyond description, as they hovered on
quivering wings above their hidden nests in the grass. It seemed
marvelous to us that birds so moderate in size could hold so much of
this wonderful song stuff. Each one of them poured forth music enough
for a whole flock, singing as if its whole body, feathers and all,
were made up of music, flowing, glowing, bubbling melody
interpenetrated here and there with small scintillating prickles and
spicules. We never became so intimately acquainted with the bobolinks
as with the thrushes, for they lived far out on the broad Fox River
meadows, while the thrushes sang on the tree-tops around every home.
The bobolinks were among the first of our great singers to leave us in
the fall, going apparently direct to the rice-fields of the Southern
States, where they grew fat and were slaughtered in countless numbers
for food.
Pages:
116
117
118
119
120
121
122
123
124
125
126
127
128
129
130
131
132
133
134
135
136
137
138
139
140