There is not a plaintive strain in his whole performance.  Every sound is as merry as the laugh of a young child; and one cannot listen to him without fancying that he is indulging in some jocose raillery of his companions.  If we suppose him to be making love, we cannot look upon him as very deeply enamored, but rather as highly delighted with his spouse, and overflowing with rapturous admiration.  The object of his love is a neatly formed bird, with a mild expression of countenance, a modest and amiable deportment, and arrayed in the plainest apparel.  It is evident that she does not pride herself upon the splendor of her costume, but rather on its neatness, and on her own feminine graces.  She must be entirely without vanity, unless we suppose that it is gratified by observing the pomp and display which are made by her partner, and by listening to his delightful eloquence of song:  for if we regard him as an orator, it must be allowed that he is unsurpassed in fluency and rapidity of utterance; and if we regard him only as a musician, he is unrivalled in brilliancy of execution.

Vain are all attempts, on the part of other birds, to imitate his truly original style.  The Mocking-bird gives up the attempt in despair, and refuses to sing at all when confined near one in a cage.  I cannot look upon him as ever in a very serious humor.  He seems to be a lively, jocular little fellow, who is always jesting and bantering, and when half a dozen different individuals are sporting about in the same orchard, I often imagine that they might represent the persons dramatized in some comic opera.  These birds never remain stationary upon the bough of a tree, singing apparently for their own solitary amusement; but they are ever in company, and passing to and fro, often commencing their song upon the extreme end of the bough of an apple-tree, then suddenly taking flight, and singing the principal part while balancing themselves on the wing.  The merriest part of the day with these birds is the later afternoon, during the hour preceding dewfall, and before the Robins and Thrushes commence their evening hymn.  Then, assembled in company, it would seem as if they were practising a cotillon upon the wing, each one singing to his own movements, as he sallies forth and returns,—­and nothing can exceed their apparent merriment.

The Bobolink usually commences his warbling just after sunrise, when the Robin, having sung from the earliest dawn, brings his performance to a close.  Nature seems to have provided that the serious parts of her musical entertainment in the morning shall first be heard, and that the lively and comic strains shall follow them.  In the evening this order is reversed; and after the comedy is concluded, Nature lulls us to meditation and repose by the mellow notes of the little Vesper-bird, and the pensive and still more melodious strains of the solitary Thrushes.