64t Observations on the Cow Bunting 



smallness of the nest, the cow bird could not enter its cavity, 

 she was compelled to sit over it ; and her egg, in dropping, 

 broke the flycatcher's. The nest was abandoned. 



There is a passage in Mr. Nuttall's history of the blue- 

 grey flycatcher, which I cannot forbear quoting, as it involves 

 one of the most preposterous ideas that ever entered into the 

 brain of a naturalist. After describing the nest of the fly- 

 catcher, our author adds, " In this frail nest, the cow troopial 

 sometimes deposits her egg, and leaves her offspring to the 

 care of these affectionate and pygmy nurses. In this case, as 

 with the cuckoo in the nest of the yellow wren, and that of the 

 red-tailed warbler, the egg is, probably, conveyed by the parent, 

 and placed in this small and slender cradle, which could not 

 be able to sustain the weight, or receive the body, of the in- 

 truder." It seems that some astute observers have lately 

 discovered, that the European cuckoo is in the habit of trans- 

 porting her egg in her mouth, when the situation of the nest 

 of her selected nurse (a hole in the wall for instance) should 

 seem to hinder her ingress to it. Mr. Nuttall, seizing upon 

 this idea, does not hesitate to conjecture that the same strata- 



fem is practised by our cow bunting, in the case instanced by 

 im ! 

 Dr. Potter, whose long letter, published by Wilson, tended 

 not a little to mislead our honest ornithologist on the peculiar 

 habits of the cow bunting, thus writes : — "I will not assert that 

 the eggs of the builder of the nest are never hatched; but I can 

 assert that I have never been able to find one instance to prove 



the affirmative " How are the eggs removed after the 



accouchement of the spurious occupant ? By the proprietor of 

 the nest, unquestionably ; for this is consistent with the rest of 

 her economy. After the power of hatching them is taken away 

 by her attention to the young stranger, the eggs would be only 

 an incumbrance, and, therefore, instinct prompts her to remove 



them Would the foster-parent feed two species of 



young at the same time ? I believe not. / have never seen an 

 instance of any bird feeding the young of another, unless imme- 

 diately after losing her own. I should think the sooty-looking 

 stranger would scarcely interest a mother, while the cries of 

 her own offspring, always intelligible, were to be heard." 



It would, perhaps, be difficult, in the whole range of natural 

 history writing, to find as notable an instance of false reasoning 

 as is presented in the foregoing extract. The epithet " sooty- 

 looking," applied to a newly hatched cow bunting, is so entirely 

 inappropriate, that one is led to believe the writer never saw a 

 young cow bird. The young cow bunting, like the young of 

 all our small birds, is clothed with a fine down, so thinly spread 



