8.  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 traveling.  Boblincoln no more, he is the reedbird now, the much-sought-for tidbit of Pennsylvanian 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.  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 ricebird of the Carolinas.  Last stage of his career:  behold him spitted with dozens of his corpulent companions, and served up, a vaunted dish, on some southern table.

9.  Such is the story of the bobolink; 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 larder.  His story contains a moral worthy the attention of all little birds and little boys; warning them to keep to those refined and intellectual pursuits which raised him to so high a pitch of popularity during the early part of his career, but to eschew all tendency to that gross and dissipated indulgence which brought this mistaken little bird to an untimely end.

—­From Irving’s “Birds of Spring.”

Definitions.—­En-am’eled, coated with a smooth, glossy surface. 3.  Sen-si-bil’i-ty, feeling. 4.  Mewed, shut up. 5.  Var’let, a rascal.  Versed, familiar, practiced. 6.  Vo-lup’tu-a-ry, one who makes his bodily enjoyment his chief object. 7.  Bon vi-vant (French, pro. bon ve-van’), one who lives well.  Gour-mand (French, pro. goor’man), a glutton.  Gas-tro-nom’ic, relating to the science of good eating. 8.  Cor’pu-lent, fleshy, fat.  Ep’i-cure, one who indulges in the luxuries of the table.  Vaunt’ed, boasted. 9.  Ex’pi-ates, atones for.  Lard’er, a pantry.  Es-chew’, to shun.

Notes.—­5.  John Logan (b. 1748, d.1788).  A Scotch writer of note.  His writings include dramas, poetry, history, and essays. 8.  The ortolan is a small bird, abundant in southern Europe, Cyprus, and Japan.  It is fattened for the table, and is considered a great delicacy.

XL.  ROBERT OF LINCOLN.

1.  Merrily swinging on brier and weed,
     Near to the nest of his little dame,
   Over the mountain side or mead,
     Robert of Lincoln is telling his name: 
       “Bobolink, bobolink,
       Spink, spank, spink. 
   Snug and safe is that nest of ours. 
   Hidden among the summer flowers. 
              Chee, chee, chee.”