At
its best, it is a remarkable performance, a unique performance, as
it contains not the slightest hint or suggestion, either in tone or
manner or effect, of any other bird-song to be heard. The bobolink
has no mate or parallel in any part of the world. He stands alone.
There is no closely allied species. He is not a lark, nor a finch,
nor a warbler, nor a thrush, nor a starling (though classed with
the starlings by late naturalists). He is an exception to many
well-known rules. He is the only ground-bird known to me of marked
and conspicuous plumage. He is the only black and white field-bird
we have east of the Mississippi, and, what is still more odd, he is
black beneath and white above,--the reverse of the fact in all
other cases. Preeminently a bird of the meadow during the breeding
season, and associated with clover and daisies and buttercups as no
other bird is, he yet has the look of an interloper or a newcomer,
and not of one to the manner born.
The bobolink has an unusually full throat, which may help account
for his great power of song. No bird has yet been found that could
imitate him, or even repeat or suggest a single note, as if his
song were the product of a new set of organs. There is a vibration
about it, and a rapid running over the keys, that is the despair of
other songsters. It is said that the mockingbird is dumb in the
presence of the bobolink. My neighbor has an English skylark that
was hatched and reared in captivity.
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