THE OOLOGIST. 



119 



less liable to leave their eggs if they are 

 advanced in incubation, and many 

 species that will resent any interference 

 by leaving the nest in the earlier days 

 of incubation, will often submit to im- 

 position without desertion when the 

 eggs are about ready to hatch. In one 

 instance a Ruffed Grouse was annoyed 

 to a great extent by the visits of the 

 neighboring boys, and the result was 

 that the eggs were addled, yet the old 

 bird was so devoted that she continued 

 to set for some time after the allotted 

 time, and after she finally gave over in 

 her efforts at a thankless undertaking, 

 the eggs were found intact in the nest 

 but without signs of development. 

 Truly this was a lost labor of love. 



Many species of birds, will, when 

 forced by stress of circumstances, drop 

 their eggs in the nests of other birds; 

 and I have found this to occur in the 

 case of seven species, as follows: A 

 Redwing's egg in the nest of a Hooded 

 Warbler; a Mourning Dove's egg in the 

 nest of a Robin; a Cedar-birds' egg in 

 the nest of a Kingbird; a Phoebe's in 

 an Eive Swallow's; Carolina Rail's in a 

 Virginia Rail's, and vice versa, and a 

 Cuckoo's, the Black-billed, in a nest of 

 the Yellow-billed. This list is aside 

 from the Cowbird, which never makes 

 a nest of its own or cares for its own 

 eggs or young, to my knowledge; 

 neither does it include the so-called 

 English sparrow, which lays its eggs on 

 all occasions, and in all locations, and it 

 would not be surprising to find an egg 

 in a contribution box at a close com- 

 munion church. When birds lose their 

 own nests, they will not rarely make a 

 deposit in the nest of most any conven- 

 ient neighbor, and this freak as we may 

 call it, thongh it were better to call it a 

 wise bit of reasoning, has led to the 

 finding of at least thirty kinds of birds 

 depositing their egg3 in the nests of 

 other birds. Others, as the ducks of 

 several species, deposit whole sets of 

 eggs in common in a nest with an- 



other duck's eggs, generally of the 

 same species, but not rarely of a differ- 

 ent kind, as has been repeatedly ver. 

 ified. This has been repeatedly ob~ 

 served in nests of the Canvas- back and 

 Red-head ducks, the females of which 

 not rarely lay in a common nest, cov- 

 ering the eggs with down as is usual. 

 Sometimes it is the Red-head that is 

 flushed frcm the nest, and again, the 

 Canvas-back, but it has not been settled 

 that both females are known to incu- 

 bate the same set of mixed eggs: but I 

 should not think it surprising if this 

 were found to be so. 



Besides the birds which are forced to 

 the shift of occasionally depositing in 

 other's nests, and the ones which have 

 the partial habit of baby-farming, so to 

 speak, as the cuckoos and ducks, there 

 are many others which are strictly in 

 favor of home rule and the care cf their 

 young, yet who are willing to occupv 

 the houses of others. Among these we 

 find, first, the birds which are willing 

 to take up with old deserted quarters: 

 second, those reating property, as it 

 were, on a time lease; and third, those 

 masters cf the situatiou who dispossess 

 the rightful owners and occupy the 

 premises for their own family. In the 

 first list, wnich is the largest, we find 

 all the many species which are incapa- 

 ble of drilling holes with their bills, 

 as the Bluebird, White-bellied Swallow, 

 Great- crested Flycatcher, House Wrens 

 and others which select among other 

 places for their nests, the deserted cav- 

 ities of Woodpeckers and Nuthatches. 

 The imported sparrow is also in this; in 

 truth he is in every list and is ubiquit- 

 ous. In the second list — the renters, 

 we find numerous instances where the 

 Great-Horned Owl takes possession of a 

 Red-tailed or Red -shouldered Hawk's 

 nest before the rightful proprietor has 

 returned from :the South and rears a 

 family, and then perhaps gives it up 

 the next season. It is even said that 

 both species have occupied the nest 



