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Thus, in February and March the Argentine cowbirds are seen flying in vast battalions in the direction of the equatorial regions that is, northward in whose salubrious clime they spend the winter. As our northern autumn draws near and the southern spring approaches these winged migrants take the air line for their breeding haunts in the Argentine Republic and Patagonia.
The cowbirds, male and female, are all free lovers. There is no mating among them. The female lays her eggs in some other bird's nest, like the English cuckoo, as if she were too busy with the duties and pleasures of society to care for her own children.
"If you'll take care not to step on us we'll catch these flies that are biting you," another offered. "Thank you!" said the Muley Cow. "You're very good to do that for an old lady like me." The cowbirds all laughed harshly at that. Though the Muley Cow didn't see any joke, she smiled in spite of herself. At least, the cowbirds had said nothing about her poke. And that was certainly worth a smile.
One night, just before the cows started for the milking-pen, a big flock of cowbirds flew down and alighted in the midst of them, some of the birds perching upon the backs of the cattle to catch their supper. When the little girl saw the black company, she looked around for her bird, but could not tell him from the others.
But what's an egg or two, more or less, when one has a half-dozen of them?" Major Monkey Confesses Major Monkey seemed surprised when Jasper Jay told him that there wasn't a bird family in the whole valley that felt it could spare a single egg. "Of course," said Jasper, "nobody cares how many Cowbirds' eggs you eat. The Cowbirds are pests. They are too lazy to build nests of their own.
You look up and see flocks of cowbirds flying in the same direction and still larger flocks of night hawks, hundreds of them in the air at once. Like the queens on the mournful barge of the fallen King Arthur, their mission is to escort the dying summer floating down, always down
Raising their long clubs to their shoulders they gazed along their narrow points a moment. Without exactly knowing why, we took alarm, and larks, bobolinks, and cowbirds sped upward like the wind. At the same instant something bright shimmered in the sunlight, and with it a horrid burst of noise and a puff of smoke.
"Won't you show me where your nests are? I'd love to see the little darlings cuddled in their beds." The cowbirds stopped catching flies and looked uneasily at one another. The fat one, however, was somewhat bolder than the rest. He fluttered up and alighted right on the back of the Muley Cow. "We don't take anybody to see our children until they leave the nests," he told the Muley Cow.
Are there such things?" clamored the children together. "The mother-bird is worrying; come over under the mulberry tree and I will tell you about this wonderful nest. "There are some very ill-mannered shiftless Citizens in Birdland, called Cowbirds," began the Doctor; "you will learn about them when we come to the family to which they belong.
Crow answered that he wasn't quite sure, but he thought Major Monkey fed for the most part on cowbirds' eggs. Aunt Polly Woodchuck shook her head. "That's not possible," she cried. "There aren't enough Cowbirds' eggs in Pleasant Valley to make anybody so fat as the Major is getting. Unless I'm mistaken, he's taking the eggs of a good many others besides Cowbirds." Mr. Crow became greatly excited.
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