246 LAND-BIRDS AND GAME-BIRDS 
lI. MOLOTHRUS 
(A) Pecorts. Cow-bird. Cow Blackbird. Cow Bunting. 
Cow-pen Bunting, etc. 
(A common summer-resident of New England, and notorious 
for the practice of laying eggs in the nests of other birds.) 
Fig. 12. Cow-bird (4). 
(a). About 73 inches long. @, iridescent black; head of 
a warm silky brown. 9, smaller, entirely brown; beneath, 
paler (and often streaky ?). 
(0). The eggs average -90X°*65 of an inch, though greatly 
varying in size, and are white, thickly sprinkled, or finely 
blotched, with brown and generally faint lilac. 
(c). The Cow-birds, like the Cuckoos of Europe,® present 
a most interesting phenomenon in nature, for, instead of pro- 
viding for their young, they deposit their eggs in the nests of 
other birds. They are also, unlike all our other birds, polyg- 
amous, being equally without conjugal and parental affection. 
I shall here follow their history from the earliest period of 
their life, when they are left to the mercies or care of their 
foster-parents, among whom I may enumerate from my own 
observations, the Blue Birds, Golden-crowned ‘‘'Thrushes,” 
Maryland ‘“ Yellow-throats,” Black and White ‘‘ Creepers,” 
Summer Yellow Birds, several other warblers, Red-eyed and 
White-eyed Vireos, ‘* Chippers,” several other sparrows, and 
85 Our cuckoos, who build their own nests, have been called ‘‘Cow-birds” from 
their notes. 
