A DEAD BEAT. 231 



But even if we do not approve him, we may study him with 

 profit. Naturalists agree that there is a great deal about his 

 crooked ways that is not yet known or explained, and that the 

 study of the cow-bird is one of the best fields open to observers. 



We need have no trouble in identifying him. He gets his 

 name from his fondness for cattle, in whose company he is 

 often seen, sometimes even riding on their backs to pick up 

 the vermin on them. (But other birds, like the ani and 

 Brewer's blackbird, also do the same.) His color is a good 

 mark. The male, in spring, is a glossy black, with brown head 

 and shoulders ; the female, dull brown. But his note is his 

 most unmistakable characteristic. It has something of the 

 reedy vibrancy of the other blackbirds, but more harshness ; 

 and it is uttered with strange contortions of his body, with 

 wings and tail quivering, head depressed, and throat swelled 

 out — an effect wholly disproportioned to the harsh and brassy 

 " chuck-see-e ^' which he finally jerks out. A flock of these 

 birds in a tree-top sounds like a congregation of rusty door- 

 hinges. 



A curious fact about the cow-birds is that the males so 

 outnumber the females that there are usually three or four to 

 a single female. And instead of a large crop of old bachelors, 

 she goes with all of them. Polyandry — having many husbands 

 — this rare habit is called. Polygamy — that is, being married 

 to many wives, like our barnyard cock — is the reverse of 

 this. It is rather a curious observation that in a polygamous 

 society the females have to work very hard ; but in a poly- 

 androus society they do not work at all. Perhaps this may 

 account for the lazy ways into which these birds have fallen. 



There are twelve species of these birds in the 'New World 

 and none (except rarely one of them) is known to build a nest, 

 though one South American species raises its own brood in 



