BIRD ENEMIES. 15 
ence to the rescue, when the arch enemy was upon 
him. There is probably little truth in the popular 
notion that snakes charm birds. The black snake is 
the most subtle, alert, and devilish of our snakes, and 
Ihave never seen him have any but young, helpless 
birds in his mouth. 
We have one parasitical bird, the cow-bird, so-called 
because it walks about amid the grazing cattle and 
seizes the insects which their heavy tread sets going, 
which is an enemy of most of the smaller birds. It 
drops its egg in the nest of the song-sparrow, the 
social sparrow, the snow-bird, the vireos, and the 
wood-warblers, and as a rule it is the only egg in 
the nest that issues successfully. Lither the eggs of 
the rightful owner of the nest are not hatched, or else 
the young are overridden and overreached by the 
parasite and perish prematurely. 
Among the worst enemies of our birds are the so: 
called “ collectors,” men who plunder nests and mur: 
der their owners in the name of science. Not the 
genuine ornithologist, for no one is more careful of 
squandering bird life than he ; but the sham ornithol- 
ogist, the man whose vanity or affectation happens to 
take an ornithological turn. He is seized with an 
itching fora collection of eggs and birds because it 
happens to be the fashion, or because it gives him the 
air of a man of science. But in the majority of cases 
the motive is a mercenary one; the collector expects 
to sell these spoils of the groves and orchards. Rob- 
bing nests and killing birds becomes a business with 
him. He goes about it systematically, and becomes 
an expert in circumventing and slaying our songsters. 
Every town of any considerable size is infested with 
one or more of these bird highwaymen, and every 
