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 time.

Next month he will be dumb, and before you know it his beautiful shining black coat, with the white and buff trimmings, will have dropped off.