No, I won't tell you a word about them now. But go down and invite Rap,
and tell him we will call for him by half-past six o'clock in the
morning, because we must have time to drive slowly, stop where we
please, and use our eyes." Early next morning the party set out. Five
happy children--the youngest eight and the oldest fifty-eight--started
from Orchard Farm behind a pair of comfortable white horses that never
wore blinkers or check-reins. These big members of the party were human
enough to look around as the children scrambled into the surrey, and
then prick up their ears as if they knew the difference between a picnic
and a plough, and were happy accordingly.

They trotted down the turnpike a mile, and then turned into a cross-road
bordered by hay-fields almost ready for cutting. Olive was driving, for
she loved the old white horses. Rap, Nat, and Dodo sat in the middle
seat, and the Doctor behind.

"Please, Doctor, what is the name of the Bird family we are going to
visit?" asked Rap.

"The family of the Blackbirds and Orioles; but it has a Latin name,
_Icteridae_, when it walks in the procession."

"Listen! listen!" cried Dodo. "Oh, Olive, do stop; there's some kind of
a bird on top of those bars that is singing as if he had started and
couldn't stop, and I'm sure his voice will fly away from him in a
minute!"

Olive said "whoa" immediately.

"It's only a Bobolink!" said Rap, as the bird spread his wings and
soared into the air still singing, leaving a little stream of music
behind him, as a dancing canoe leaves a train of ripples in the water.

"It is a Bobolink, surely," said the Doctor, "and not 'only a Bobolink,'
but the very bird we should be most glad to see--the first of the
Blackbird and Oriole family--the harlequin in his summer livery."

THE BOBOLINK

(THE REED BIRD. THE RICE BIRD)

[Illustration: Bobolink.]

"Why do you call the Bobolink a 'harlequin,' Uncle Roy? What is a
harlequin?" asked Dodo.

"Don't you remember that Harlequin was the name of the man in the
pantomime we saw last winter, who wore clothes of all sorts of colors,
changed from one thing to another, and was always dancing about as if he
could not possibly keep still?" "Y-e-s, I remember," said Dodo, "but I
don't think he was a bit like this Bobolink; for that harlequin didn't
say a word, only made signs, and the Bobolink sings faster than any bird
I ever heard before."

"Yes, he sings now; but it is only for a short t