Different people fancy the boblink to say different things. A girl of sixteen blushes at his open, impertinent calling out the name of her lover, which she supposed a secret to every one but herself; the miser thinks his song like the jingling of keys; a tory fancies that the rogue calls him a whig; a whig, that he reviles him as a tory; a boy going home from school, imagines that he is mocking him for spelling the word _jingo_, with two gs――and a town-meeting orator, regards him as a lecturer upon that species of eloquence which at town-meetings is usually displayed――a succession of nasal, brassy sounds, with very little sense. But let us leave boblink to pursue his cheerful, happy life, and look at that bird with long legs and a sly appearance, stealing through the grass. He is a meadow lark,――and a magnificent bird, streaked with gray and brown upon the back, with a breast of bright yellow. See! he is very timid, and has already flown. Alas, his flesh is excellent, and man has taught him that there is danger in his near approach. Yet listen to his clear, shrill note, as he flies in the air. See! there he lights on the topmost bough of yonder apple-tree. How plaintive, yet how beautiful, his prolonged note! He is not, however, so sweet a singer as the lark of Europe. Let us take a stroll in yonder thicket. How still and secluded is this little dell. Not a sound is to be heard. Hush! I heard a rustle among the bushes! Oh, it is a brown thrush; there he sits, trying to hide himself behind the oak leaves. He has a nest near, and being engaged in important business, does not wish to be disturbed. He will not speak to you till evening. If you are then within a quarter of a mile, you will hear his song. It consists of imitations and variations that might put Ole Bull to the blush. Some passages are exquisitely beautiful, and would excite the envy of that conceited bird, the English talk so much of,――the nightingale,――a bird, that is so solicitous to be heard, that it will sing only in the night, when all honest birds are asleep. We will say no more of this month, after introducing to you the following description of it, in the oldest English lay extant: “Summer is yeomen in―― Loud sing cuckoo; Groweth seed, and bloweth mead, And springeth the weed new.” ―――― THE NEW KING.――The king of the Sandwich Islands has so much improved in his condition since he signed the pledge, that the people call him THE NEW KING. [Illustration (hawk with rabbit)] Inquisitive Jack. CHAPTER V. _About Quadrupeds._