oed
and flooded with water all the season to make the grain grow, are
covered with tall stalks of rice, whose grains are not quite ripe, but
soft and milky like green corn.

"Some morning there is a great commotion on the plantation. 'The
Ricebirds have come!' is the cry--this being only another name for the
Bobolink.

"Out fly the field-hands, men, women, and children, waving sticks,
blowing horns, and firing off guns, to frighten the invaders away.
Fires are lighted by night to scare them, for the birds travel both
night and day. The Bobolinks do not stop for all this noise, though of
course a great many are shot, ending their lives inside a pot-pie, or
being roasted in rows of six on a skewer. But the rest fly on when they
are ready, leaving the United States behind them, and go through Florida
to Brazil and the West Indies.

"In spring, on the northward journey, the rice-fields suffer again. The
males are jolly minstrels once more, all black, white, and buff,
hurrying home to their nesting grounds. They think that rice newly sown
and sprouting is good for the voice, and stop to gobble it up in spite
of all objections.

"Their song is not easy to express in words. 'Bobolink,' from which they
take their name, is the sound most frequently heard in it; but every
bird-lover has tried to give it words, and some have written it down in
rhyming nonsense verses, like poetry. I think Mr. Lowell's are the best.

"'Ha! ha! ha! I must have my fun, Miss Silverthimble, thimble,
thimble, if I break every heart in the meadow. See! see! see!' is one
translation."

"That does sound exactly like a Bobolink," laughed Dodo; "and here is
one now, right over in that tree, so crazy to sing that he doesn't mind
us a bit."

"Kick your slipper! Kick your slipper! Temperance! Temperance!" said
Bob, as the white horses turned into the road again. "Temperance! take a
drink! go to grass, all of you!"

The Bobolink.

Length about seven inches.

Male in spring and summer: jet black with ashy-white rump and shoulders;
some light edgings on the back, wings, and tail-feathers, and a buff
patch on the back of the neck, like a cream-puff baked just right.

Female: brownish and streaky like a big Sparrow, with sharp-pointed
tail-feathers; two dark-brown stripes on the crown. Brown above, with
some black and yellowish streaks. Plain yellowish below.

In autumn and winter both sexes alike.

A Summer Citizen of the northern United States an