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"I will tell you," said the robin. "You know there is a bird called the cowbird or cuckoo, and that bird is too lazy to build a nest for itself. So what do you think it does?" "What?" asked the pussy. "Why it goes around, laying its eggs in the nests of other birds," said the robin.
It was a long time to wait, but at length patience had its reward; one of the birds flew down to the bushes on the steep slope above me and fed a youngster in plain view. No time was lost in pushing through the bushy tangle to the magic spot. Behold! it was a young cowbird that had been fed by the devoted little mother!
He is familiar, hardy, abundant, thievish, and his habits, manners, and song recall our bird to the life. Our own native blackbirds, the crow blackbird, the rusty grackle, the cowbird, and the red-shouldered starling, are not songsters, even in the latitude allowable to poets; neither are they whistlers, unless we credit them with a "split-whistle," as Thoreau does.
Straight on she rode to the river meadows where the cowbird colonies lived. Once there, she got down carefully from her horse and, after placing her pet gently upon a stone, took from her pockets a crust, part of a shriveled apple, a chunk of gingerbread, and a cold boiled potato. These she placed in front of him on the ground.
He is a resident of Mexico, southern Texas, southwestern Arizona, and southern California. His habits resemble those of the common cowbird. Another bunting having almost the same range, although a little more southerly, is the red-eyed cowbird, which is larger and darker than our common cowbird and has the same parasitical habits. In South America three species have been studied by Mr.
It was reported some time after my article on the cowbird was first published in Appleton's "Popular Science Monthly."
Then the young Cowbird grows so fast that it squeezes the little Sparrows dreadfully, sometimes quite out of the nest, and eats so much that they are half or wholly starved. The poor Sparrow and her mate must sometimes think what a big child it is; but they feed it kindly until it can fly sometimes even after it leaves the nest.
The structure of animals, their colors, their ornaments, their distribution, their migrations, all have a significance that science may interpret for us if it can, but it is the business of every observer to report truthfully what he sees, and not to confound his facts with his theories. Why does the cowbird lay its egg in another bird's nest? Why are these parasitical birds found the world over?
In all cases where I have found this egg, I have observed both male and female cowbird lingering near, the former uttering his peculiar liquid, glassy note from the tops of the trees. In July, the young which have been reared in the same neighborhood, and which are now of a dull fawn color, begin to collect in small flocks, which grow to be quite large in autumn.
Then the male Yellow Warbler flew out along a branch above their heads, gave his lisping song, that sounded like "sweet, sweet, sweet, sweeter," seized an insect, and went across the garden toward his nest. "I'm going to watch that nest," said Rap, "and if a Cowbird lays in it any more I'll take the wicked old egg away." "Sweet, sweet, sweet," called the Warbler from the bushes.
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