Should the bobolink and his juvenile family take to a tree for a roosting-place, provided his supper has not made his body heavier than his wings are strong, opossum will climb after him. So poor bobolink is pursued on every hand. Bird of the ground is he, everywhere; he is born on the ground and dies on the ground, usually, for the ground is his dinner-table. His human friends (or foes) take him pitilessly at his meals when he is too full for utterance or quick flight. And these human friends (or foes) dine upon him until they in turn are too full for utterance. Oh, the bobolink has a hard time! But still he named himself out of the glee of his heart, and he sings a fourth part of the year as only a bobolink can sing. You can make almost anything you please of the song. Children sit on the fence-rails and mimic him, and "guess" what he says, and cry, "Spink, spank, spink," "meadow wink, meadow wink," "just think, just think," "don't you wink, don't you wink," "want a drink, want a drink?" Coming back to his real name, "bobolink, bobolink," as if, after all, that were the nearest right. Right under the swinging bare feet of the children, in a dark, cool nest, Mother Skunk is fast asleep, making up for last night's carousals among the bobolink nests. June would be no June without the bobolinks, where they are expected, and so ever so many things get ready for them. For what other purpose than for the bobolinks do the ground-beetles air themselves, and the crickets get out their violins, and the gray spiders spin yarn on their doorsteps? Of course it is all for purposes of their own, since nobody knows that beetles and crickets and spiders particularly love to be gobbled up by a bobolink. But it is one and the same to the bobolink family, who must have food of some sort. And they couldn't at this season of the year, and under the peculiar conditions of family life, get along reasonably well without meat of some sort. Later on, when the dandelions bethink themselves to turn into round white moons that fly away in the breeze, and the wild oats lift their shoulder-capes, the bobolinks can turn vegetarians. Shy, suspecting little birds, sharp of eye, fresh from a winter tour in the West Indies, they come exactly when they are expected. They never disappoint people. The very earliest to arrive may sing their "Don't you wink, don't you wink," on April 1st. But bobolink makes no April fool of himself or anybody else, unless it be Master Skunk in his hollow tree, who rubs his eyes at the first word from Robert o' Lincoln. But the male birds have come in advance of their women folk, and roost high and dry out of reach of four-footed marauders. It is as if the mother bobolinks would be quite sure the spring storms are over before they put themselves in the way of housework.