——"E 
THE SUMMER WARBLER. 
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and strength, come in for the lion’s share of all the food brought to the 
nest. Thus the innocent parents rear the aliens, while their own young 
starve. It is really a pitiable sight to see a couple of little greenlets 
anxiously searching from daybreak till evening for food to fill the 
capacious crop of one or more young cow blackbirds, considerably larger 
than the greenlets themselves.” 
“The summer yellowbird, though confiding little creatures, are not 
readily duped or imposed upon. Their instinct is sufficiently near 
reason for them to detect the difference between their own little fragile, 
prettily-marked, greenish-colored eggs and the great dark colored ones 
the vagabond cow blackbird has surreptitiously smuggled into the cozy 
nest. The domestic little couple cling to the spot selected for their 
house and will not leave it, neither will they hatch the obnoxious eggs, 
which they are apparently unable to throw: out; but the difficulty is 
soon surmounted, and so are the gratuitous eggs, for the indefatigable 
workers proceed at once to cover up the cow blackbird’s eggs, construct- 
ing a new nest dn top of the old one, building a second story, as it 
were to their house.” 
“ Last summer Mr. Lang: Gibson, brought me one of these two- 
story nests which he found at Flushing, L. I. ; the lower nest contained 
two cow blackbird’s eggs, and the upper one three eggs of the summer 
yellowbird. Gibson watched the construction of the nest. Visiting it 
again after it was finished, he discovered the ege of a cow blackbird. 
Next day two of these eges occupy the nest. Some time afterward, to 
his surprise, he found the nest contained three eggs of the yellow-bird 
and ‘no signs of the existence of those deposited by the blackbird, but 
the nest had the appearance of being much taller than at first, and an 
examination disclosed the true facts of the case.” 
