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Partly, perhaps, by reason of this outside pressure, they are cheek by jowl with the poultry, the cow-bunting, which is the pet prey of the hawk, following them into the back porch and insisting sometimes on breakfasting with Tray, or rather with Legion, for that is the name of the Texas dog.
The nest is so ingeniously covered with grass and disguised with the appearance of the general surface around it, that it is very seldom discovered. The Cow-Bunting, however, is able to find it, and often selects it as a depository for its own eggs.
The cluck and coo of the cuckoo, the bubbling song of bobolink in buff and black, the watery trill of the stream-loving swamp-sparrow, the whispered whistle of the stealthy, darkness-haunting whippoorwill, the gurgle and gargle of the cow-bunting, he knew each and all, better than did Audubon, Nuttall, or Wilson.
If the youngster escape the dangers peculiar to the nest, the devouring jaws of squirrel or owl, the hands of the egg thief, being shaken out by the wind, smothered by an intrusive cow-bunting, or orphaned by the gun of a "collector;" if, neither stolen, eaten, thrown out, nor starved, he arrives at the age that his wings begin to stir and force him out of the leafy green tent of his birth, a new set of dangers meet him at the door.
Not so the oven-bird, or the other birds that walk, as the cow-bunting, or the quail, or the crow. They move the head forward with the movement of the feet.
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