the seeds of the tall weeds on which he lately swung and chanted so
melodiously. He has become a bon vivant, a gourmand: with him now there is
nothing like the "joys of the table." In a little while he grows tired of
plain, homely fare, and is off on a gastronomic tour in quest of foreign
luxuries.

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."