\bin (NAH. Birds a. pl. 33, 
fig.2), and subsequently by 
108 COW-BIRD—COWRY-BIRD 
_ same species as the first, was killed in Kent, not later, according to 
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 Charadriidx (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 Europe breeds in 
Mauritania and the Canary Islands, as well as in India. 
COW-BIRD, in England the yellow WaeralL, Motacilla raii ; 
but in North America the name applied to two very distinct 
birds. First to one of the Cuckows (Coccyzus carolinenis), next and 
far more commonly as an abbreviation of Cowpen-bird, according to 
Catesby (NV. H. Carolina, 1. 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 Molobrus pecoris,) one of the Icteridz, 
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 victims of the Cow- 
bird’s intruding its eggs into their nests are hardly less numerous 
than the dupes of our own Cuckow, but no one seems to have 
witnessed 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 Ridg- 
way, besides Dr. Coues’s Birds of the North-West (pp. 181-185). In 
the South American species of Molobrus, Mr. W. H. Hudson, whose 
remarks (Argent. Ornithol. 1. 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. rufazillaris, is 
parasitic upon another, JZ. badius, which makes a nest for itself, 
though he believes that this last will not foster the offspring of a 
third and eminently parasitical species, MZ. bonariensis. 
COWRY-BIRD, the Fingilla punctulata of Linneeus, the Amadina 
or Munia punctulata of modern writers. It was apparently first 
made known by, Edwards (NV. H. Birds, i. p. 40), who figured it 
1 The word was originally misprinted Molothrws, and though Swainson (Faun. 
Bor.-Am. ii. p. 277) was at the pains to explain this meaning of it, ‘‘ qui non 
vocatus alienas edes intrat,” shewing that Molobrus must have been intended, 
the majority of writers prefer following the error. 
