It pained and startled the ear. It seemed as if the
instrument of the bird was not under control, or else that one note
was sadly out of tune, and, when its turn came, instead of giving
forth one of those sounds that are indeed like pearls, it shocked
the ear with a piercing discord. Yet the singer appeared entirely
unconscious of the defect; or had he grown used to it, or had his
friends persuaded him that it was a variation to be coveted?
Sometimes, after the brood had hatched and the bird's pride was at
its full, he would make a little triumphal tour of the locality,
coming from under the hill quite up to the house, and flaunting his
cracked instrument in the face of whoever would listen. He did not
return again the next season; or, if he did, the malformation of
his song was gone.
I have noticed that the bobolink does not sing the same in
different localities. In New Jersey it has one song; on the
Hudson, a slight variation of the same; and on the high grass-lands
of the interior of the State, quite a different strain,--clearer,
more distinctly articulated, and running off with more sparkle and
liltingness. It reminds one of the clearer mountain air and the
translucent spring-water of those localities. I never could make
out what the bobolink says in New Jersey, but in certain districts
in this State his enunciation is quite distinct. Sometimes he
begins with the word _gegue, gegue._ Then again, more fully, _be
true to me, Clarsy, be true to me, Clarsy, Clarsy,_ thence full
tilt into his inimitable song, interspersed in which the words
_kick your slipper, kick your slipper,_ and temperance, temperance
(the last with a peculiar nasal resonance), are plainly heard.
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