Also boblincoln, -lincon, boblink, (bob-o-lincoln, bob-o-linkhorn, Audubon). [app. at first Bob Lincoln, or Bob o’ Lincoln, a free rendering of the note or call of the bird.] A North American singing-bird (Dolichonyx oryzivorus), which appears in the northern states in spring, and returns southwards at the end of summer. Called also Reed-bird and Rice-bird.
1796. Morse, Amer. Geog., I. 210. Boblincoln.
1809. W. Irving, Knickerb. (1861), 75. In the merry month of June … [when] the luxurious little boblincon revels among the clover blossoms of the meadows. Ibid. (1840), Wolfert’s R. (1855), 20. The happiest bird of our spring … is the Boblincon, or Boblink, as he is commonly called.
1849. T. Parker, Wks., VII. 243. Who listen to the whippoorwill and the bobolink.
1855. in Life W. Irving, IV. 163. The history of the boblink, or bob-o-lincoln.
1879. Lowell, Poet. Wks., 372. The bobolink has come.
