[c- 



io8 CO IV-BIRD—CO IVR Y-BIRD 



same species as the first, was killed in Kent, not later, according t-o 

 Mr. Saunders (Yarrell, Br. B. ed. 4, iii. p. 239), than 1785, and is now 

 in the British Museum. The Coursers form a small group of some 

 nine or ten species, belonging to the Charadriidse (Plover), but differ- 

 ing from all except the PRATINCOLES by their thick and decurved bill. 

 One species is peculiar to the Indian Region, the rest belong to the 

 Ethiopian, though that which accidentally visits Eiu:'ope breeds in 

 Mauritania and the Canary Islands, as well as in India. 



CO AY-BIRD, in England the yellow "Wagtail, Motacilla raii; 

 but in North America the name applied to two very distinct 

 birds. First to one of the Cuckows (Coccyzus caroUnenis), next and 

 far more commonly as an abbreviation of Cowpen-bird, according to 

 Catesby (iV. H. Carolina, i. p. 34), who says : — "They delight much 

 to feed in the pens of cattle, which has given them their name," to 

 a species which is also spoken of as Cow-Blackbird, Cow-Bunting,- 

 and Cow-Troopial, and is the MoJohrus pecoris,'^ one of the Icteridx, 

 and particular interest attaches to it from its parasitic habits, first 

 recorded in 1810 by Alexander Wilson {Amer. Orn. ii. pp. 145- 

 160), though, as he was careful to say, they had "long been known 

 to people of observation resident in the country," .and indeed he 

 cites an instructive series of observations by Dr. Potter of Balti- 

 more, shewing that that gentleman had for some time made the 

 bird his study. The species which are the "\dctims of the Cow- 

 bird's intruding its eggs into their nests are hardly less numerous 

 than the dupes of om* own Cuckow, but no one seems to have 

 mtnessed the actual displacement of their rightful owner's progeny. 

 Further particulars, which it would be impossible to reproduce 

 here, may be found in the works of Nuttall and Audubon, as well 

 as in the North American Birds of Messrs. Baird, Brewer, and Eidg- 

 way, besides Dr. Coues's Birds of the North-JVest (pp. 181-185). In 

 the South American species of Molohrvs, Mr. W. H. Hudson, whose 

 remarks {Argent. Ornithol. i. pp. 72-97) upon them deserve the best 

 attention, has observed that the old Cow-birds, both male and 

 female, destroy many of the eggs in the nests which they visit ; 

 but extraordinary as it seems, one of the species, M. rufaxillaris, is 

 parasitic upon another. If. hadius, which makes a nest for itself, 

 though he believes that this last will not foster the offspring of a 

 third and eminently parasitical species, M. honariensis. 



COWRY-BIRD, the Fingilla punctidata, of Linnaeus, the Amadina 

 or Mnnia punctidata of modern writers. It was apparently first 

 made known_bj. Edwards (N. H. Birds, i. p. 40), who figured it 



^ The word was originally misprinted Molothrus, and thongli Swainson (Faun. 

 Bor.-Am. ii. p. 277) was at the pains to exjilain this meaning of it, "qui non 

 vocatus alienas sedes intrat," shewing that Molohrus must have been intended, 

 the majority of writers prefer following the error. 



