346 BULLETIN 195, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM 



two ticks Haemaphysalis leporis-palustris Packard and Ixodes 

 bnmneus Koch. 



The catbird is subject to parasitism by the cowbird. A. C. Bent has 

 informed me of a catbird's nest that he found in an ash tree about 6 

 feet above the ground, in Nelson County, N. Dak., on June 14, 1901. 

 The catbird was incubating four cowbird's eggs and one of its own. 

 Mr. Bent states that the cowbird's eggs were of two different types, 

 suggesting that they had been laid by two different individuals. 



Dr. Herbert Friedmann (1929), the foremost authority on the cow- 

 bird, states that the catbird is an uncommon victim and that as far as 

 he knows the cowbird has never been definitely reported to be success- 

 ful with this bird. The few published records range from Maine, 

 New York, and Pennsylvania to Indiana and North Dakota. Experi- 

 ments were tried to see whether the catbird could distinguish her own 

 eggs from the eggs of other species. In every case the foreign eggs 

 were ejected by the catbird, Nuttall (1903) also states: "On placing 

 an egg of this species [cowbird] in the Catbird's nest it was almost 

 instantly ejected." It is obvious that the catbird is very intolerant of 

 foreign eggs. "It is worthy of note," says Dr. Friedmann," that while 

 the catbird seems to know enough to distinguish between its own and 

 other eggs and to get rid of the unwelcome additions to its nest, if a 

 leaf is laid lightly over the nest it does not seem to know enough to 

 get rid of it but will sit on the leaf as though trying to incubate 

 through it." 



The eggs of the Nevada or sagebush cowbird (Molothrus ater 

 artemesiae) as well as those of the eastern cowbird {Molothrus ater 

 ater) have been found in nests of the catbird. 



The yellow-billed cuckoo sometimes lays its eggs in the nests of other 

 birds of which the catbird is a known victim. Nuttall ( 1903) in writing 

 of the yellow-billed cuckoo stated : "Careless in providing comfort for 

 her progeny, the American Cuckoo, like that of Europe seems at times 

 inclined to throw the charge of her offspring on other birds. Ap- 

 proaching to this habit, I have found an egg of the Cuckoo in the nest 

 of a Catbird; yet though the habitation was usurped, the intruder 

 probably intended to hatch her own eggs." O. Widmann (1882) 

 writes of a similar experience as follows : "I was not a little astonished 

 to find last Saturday, June 4, 1881, an egg of a Yellow-billed Cuckoo 

 in a Catbird's nest. The Catbird's nest contained only one egg of its 

 rightful owner; another Catbird's egg was found broken on the 

 ground. The Cuckoo's egg was fresh, but the Catbird's egg was incu- 

 bated." Robert Dresser (Webster, 1892) took a catbird's nest on 

 May 20, 1892, which contained four eggs of the catbird and one egg 

 of the yellow-billed cuckoo. 



H. Miller (1891) reports a most astonishing mixup in which a cat- 

 bird's nest containing two eggs of the catbird and two eggs of the 



