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Updated: June 12, 2025
Before the contents of the crocks were thrown out that morning, the little girl's mother called all of the big brothers in to view the mess; and by the time breakfast was over, the cowbird had been passed around, for every one wanted to see if any milk could be found on him. None was discovered, however, so the little girl was allowed to carry him away in triumph on her shoulder.
A passing description of the brown thrush as "skulking" among the bushes hits that bird to the life. Some remarks on page 119 would seem to be applied by a slip of the pen to the crow blackbird, instead of the cowbird, which has always enjoyed the distinction of being the only American species that disposes of its offspring after the fashion of the cuckoo and Jean Jacques Rousseau.
In America the cowbird, often called the cow bunting, is the only member of the avian household that spirits its eggs into the nests of other birds.
They had darted anxiously about it for a while, then the male had settled upon a swinging elder-branch to sing a mournful song to his mute, grief-stricken mate. Their last baby was gone. WHEN the little girl came trudging along the road that evening on her way to the farm-house, she sat down for a moment opposite the stone on which the cowbird was perched.
And in about a minute they heard something flying through the bushes and out flew that same cowbird, and she laughed just as hard as she could laugh, as she passed along. "Somebody is going to be surprised!" cried the cowbird and she fluttered her wings at the rabbit and the kittie, and then she hid herself off in the woods. "I wonder what she means?" asked the pussy.
Robin wouldn't hear of such a thing. "It's not his fault that his mother left him here in the egg," she would remind Jolly Robin. "If we set him adrift the poor child would starve unless the cat got him." And then Jolly Robin would feel ashamed that he had even thought of being so cruel to an infant bird, even if he was a Cowbird.
In obtruding her eggs into the nests of other birds, Madame Cowbird is sly and stealthy. She does not drive the rightful owners from their nests, but simply watches her opportunity to drop her eggs into them when they are unguarded. No doubt she has been on the alert while her industrious neighbors have been constructing their domiciles, and knows where almost every nest in the vicinity is hidden.
Such is a cuckoo's nest, such a mourning dove's or a heron's; merely a flat platform of a few interlaced twigs, through which the eggs are visible from below. Why, we ask, are some birds so careless or so unskilful? The European cuckoo, like our cowbird, is a parasite, laying her eggs in the nests of other birds; so, perhaps, neglect of household duties is in the blood.
Indeed, it sometimes builds its own nest, which is quite a respectable affair; but, as if to prove that it still has some remnants of cowbird depravity in its nature, it frequently drives other birds from their rightful possessions, appropriates the quarters thus acquired, lays its eggs into them, and proceeds to the performance of its domestic duties like its respectable neighbors.
A worthy Citizen, fine musician, and a good neighbor. Belongs to the guilds of Ground Gleaners, Tree Trappers, and Seed Sowers. "Cluck-see! cluck-see!" called a Cowbird, flying over the wall to join the others in the pasture. "What a hoarse ugly cry!" said Nat. "Yes, but not more disagreeable than the bird's habits.
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