Until their mates arrive, the male birds go on a lark, sailing low over meadows, singing as they sail, each outdoing his friend, sitting now on a fence-post, and now on the budding branch of a maple or elm, calling their own names, and adding whole sentences or stanzas in praise of the Middle West country, and of New England in particular. Then comes the fun of courtship, when the modest lady bobolinks appear on the ground. With the praise of them on their lips, the males come near and ask each for the hand of his lady-love. Should a rival seek an accepted sweetheart, the rightful mate drives him from the field, literally speaking, and the by no means dejected lover goes to another meadow for a bride. And that is all right, for aren't all lady bobolinks alike? No, indeed, they are not! or so think their devoted mates, for never was closer tie than binds the two to one another. The male never leaves the neighborhood of his family, but sings to his mate as she attends fondly to those affairs which gladden the heart of nature among bird or beast or insect. And she has not far to go for nesting materials. She may even shorten matters by shoving together a bunch of dry leaves and grass that served for the nest of a field-mouse last fall. And she eats as she works, for at every pull at blade or leaf an insect runs out of its hiding-place, right into her mouth, as it were. And if the farmer happen to be plowing, she will run along at the back of him, on the margin of the last furrow, for grub or larva, slipping back into the grass of the hay-field before ever he turns for the next furrow. If the bobolinks flew north in the light of the moon they may expect good luck; and sometime in June, where before there were a pair of birds, there are now half a dozen or one more than that. The eggs are five or six, but, as with most birds, "there's no telling," and if the parents succeed in raising three or four children out of their single brood for the summer, they do well.