80 BIRDS OF - PLATA 
Molothrus may be added another of equal or even 
greater importance. It is never engaged with the 
dilatory and exhaustive process of rearing its own 
young ; and for this reason continues in better con- 
dition than other species, and moreover, being 
gregarious and practising promiscuous sexual inter- 
course, must lay a much greater number of eggs than 
other species. In our domestic fowls we see that 
hens that never become broody lay a great deal more 
than others. Some of our small birds rear two, others 
only one brood in a season—building, incubation, 
and tending the young taking up much time, so that 
they are usually from two to three months and a 
half employed. But the Cow-bird is like the fowl 
that never incubates, and continues dropping eggs 
during four months and a half. From the beginning 
of September until the end of January the males 
are seen incessantly wooing the females, and during 
most of this time eggs are found. I find that small 
birds will, if deprived repeatedly of their nests, lay 
and even hatch four times in the season, thus laying, 
if the full complement be four, sixteen eggs. No 
doubt the Cow-bird lays a much larger number than 
that ; my belief is that every female lays from sixty 
to a hundred eggs every season, though I have 
nothing but the extraordinary number of wasted 
eggs one finds to judge from. 
Before dismissing the subject of the advantages 
the Molothrus possesses over its dupes, and of the 
real or apparent defects of its instinct, some attention 
should be given to another circumstance, viz., the 
