in the spring, just when the crocus and the snow-drop begin to peep forth. Their first chirp spreads gladness through the house. "The Phoebe birds have come!" is heard on all sides; they are welcomed back like members of the family; and speculations are made upon where they have been, and what countries they have seen, during their long absence. Their arrival is the more cheering, as it is pronounced, by the old weather-wise people of the country, the sure sign that the severe frosts are at an end, and that the gardener may resume his labors with confidence.

About this time, too, arrives the blue-bird, so poetically yet truly described by Wilson. His appearance gladdens the whole landscape. You hear his soft warble in every field. He sociably approaches your habitation, and takes up his residence in your vicinity. But why should I attempt to describe him, when I have Wilson's own graphic verses, to place him before the reader?

When winter's cold tempests and snows are no more,
Green meadows and brown furrowed fields reappearing,
The fishermen hauling their shad to the shore,

And cloud-cleaving geese to the lakes are a-steering;

When first the lone butterfly flits on the wing,

When red glow the maples, so fresh and so pleasing,

O then comes the blue-bird, the herald of spring,

And hails with his warblings the charms of the season.

The loud-piping frogs make the marshes to ring;

Then warm glows the sunshine, and warm grows the weather ·

The blue woodland flowers just beginning to spring,

And spice-wood and sassafras budding together;

O then to your gardens, ye housewives, repair,

Your walks border up, sow and plant at your leisure ·

The blue-bird will chant from his box such an air,
That all your hard toils will seem truly a pleasure!

He flits through the orchard, he visits each tree,

The red flowering peach, and the apple's sweet blossoms;
He snaps up destroyers, wherever they be,

And seizes the caitiffs that lurk in their bosoms;

He drags the vile grub from the corn it devours,

The worms from the webs where they riot and welter;

His song and his services freely are ours,

The ploughman is pleased when he gleans in his train,
Now searching the furrows, now mounting to cheer him;

The gard❜ner delights in his sweet simple strain,

And leans on his spade to survey and to hear him.
The slow lingering school-boys forget they'll be chid,
While gazing intent, as he warbles before them

In mantle of sky-blue, and bosom so red,

That each little loiterer seems to adore him.

The happiest bird of our spring, however, and one that rivals the European lark in my estimation, is the Boblincon, or Boblink, as he is commonly called. He arrives at that choice portion of our year, which, in this latitude, answers to the description of the month of May, so often given by the poets. With us, it begins about the middle of May, and lasts until nearly the middle of June. Earlier than this, winter is apt to return on its traces, and to blight the opening beauties of the year; and later than this, begin the parching, and panting, and dissolving heats of summer. But in this genial interval, nature is in all her freshness and fragrance

“the rains are over and gone, the flowers appear upon the earth, the time of the singing of birds is come, and the voice of the turtle is heard in the land." The trees are now in their fullest foliage and brightest verdure; the woods are gay with the clustered flowers of the laurel; the air is perfumed by the sweet-brier and the wild rose; the meadows are enamelled with clover-blos soms; while the young apple, the peach, and the plum, begin to swell, and the cherry to glow, among the green leaves.

This is the chosen season of revelry of the Boblink. He comes amidst the pomp and fragrance of the season; his life seems all sensibility and enjoyment, all song and sunshine. He is to be found in the soft bosoms of the freshest and sweetest meadows; and is most in song, when the clover is in blossom. He perches on the topmost twig of a tree, or on some long flaunting weed, and as he rises and sinks with the breeze, pours forth a succession of rich tinkling notes; crowding one upon another, like the outpouring melody of the skylark, and possessing the same rapturous character. Sometimes he pitches from the summit of a tree, begins his song as soon as he gets upon the wing, and flutters tremulously down to the earth, as if overcome with ecstasy at his own music Sometimes he is in pursuit of his paramour always in full song, as if he would win her by his melody; and always with the same appearance of intoxication and delight.

Of all the birds of our groves and meadows, the Boblink was the envy of my boyhood. He crossed my path in the sweetest weather, and the sweetest season of the year, when all nature called to the fields, and the rural feeling throbbed in every bosom ; but when I, luckless urchin! was doomed to be mewed up, during

the livelong day, in that purgatory of boyhood, a school-room. It seemed as if the little varlet mocked at me, as he flew by in full song, and sought to taunt me with his happier lot. Oh, how I envied him! No lessons, no task, no hateful school; nothing but holiday, frolic, green fields, and fine weather. Had I been then more versed in poetry, I might have addressed him in the words of Logan to the cuckoo :

Sweet bird! thy bower is ever green,

Thy sky is ever clear

Thou hast no sorrow in thy note,

No winter in thy year.

Oh! could I fly, I'd fly with thee;
We'd make, on joyful wing,
Our annual visit round the globe,
Companions of the spring!

Further observation and experience have given me a different idea of this little feathered voluptuary, which I will venture to impart, for the benefit of my schoolboy readers, who may regard him with the same unqualified envy and admiration which I once indulged. I have shown him only as I saw him at first, in what

I

may call the poetical part of his career, when he in a manner devoted himself to elegant pursuits and enjoyments, and was a bird of music, and song, and taste, and sensibility, and refinement. While this lasted, he was sacred from injury; the very schoolboy would not fling a stone at him, and the merest rustic would pause to listen to his strain. But mark the difference. As the year advances, as the clover blossoms disappear, and the spring fades

In a

into summer, he gradually gives up his elegant tastes and habits; doffs his poetical suit of black, assumes a russet dusty garb, and sinks to the gross enjoyments of common vulgar birds. His notes no longer vibrate on the ear; he is stuffing himself with the seeds of the tall weeds on which he lately swung and chanted so melodiously. He has become a "bon vivant," a "gourmand; with him now there is nothing like the "joys of the table." little while he grows tired of plain homely fare, and is off on a gastronomical tour in quest of foreign luxuries. We next hear of him with myriads of his kind, banqueting among the reeds of the Delaware; and grown corpulent with good feeding. He has changed his name in travelling. Boblincon no more he is the Reed-bird now, the much sought for titbit of Pennsylvania epicures; the rival in unlucky fame of the ortolan! Wherever he goes, pop! pop! pop! every rusty firelock in the country is blazing away. He sees his companions falling by thousands around him.

Does he take warning and reform ?-Alas not he! Incor rigible epicure! again he wings his flight. The rice swamps of the south invite him. He gorges himself among them almost to bursting; he can scarcely fly for corpulency. He has once more changed his name, and is now the famous Rice-bird of the Carolinas.

Last stage of his career; behold him spitted with dozens of his corpulent companions, and served up, a vaunted dish, on the table of some Southern gastronome.

Such is the story of the Boblink; once spiritual, musical, admired, the joy of the meadows, and the favorite bird of spring; finally, a gross little sensualist who expiates his sensuality in the