THE COWBIRD. meta 43 
soft gray mosses for the eggs. The nest is usually well concealed in a fir 
tree, and may be placed at any height from ten or fifteen feet upward, altho 
usually at sixty or eighty feet. Only one brood is reared in a season, and 
family groups hunt together until late in the summer. 
No. 15. 
COWBIRD. 
A. O. U. No. 495. Molothrus ater (Bodd.). 
Synonyms.—Cow BiLackprrp. CucKOoLp. 
Description.—Adult male: Head and neck wood-, seal-, or coffee-brown 
(variable) ; remaining plumage black with metallic greenish or bluish iridescence. 
Female: Dark grayish brown, showing slight greenish reflections, darkest on 
wings and tail, lightening on breast and throat. Young in first plumage: Like 
female but lighter below and more or less streaky; above somewhat mottled by 
buffy edgings of feathers. The young males present a striking appearance when 
they are assuming the adult black, on the installment plan, by chunks and blotches. 
Length 7.50-8.00 (190.5-203.2); wing 4.40 (111.8); tail 3.00-3.40 (76.2-86.4) ; 
bill .65 (16.5); tarsus .95-1.10 (24.1-27.9). Female, length, wing, and tail 
one-half inch less. 
Recognition Marks.—Chewink size; brown head and black body of male; 
brown of female. 
Nesting.—The Cowbird invariably deposits her eggs in the nests of other 
birds. Eggs: 1 or 2, rarely 3 or 4, with a single hostess, white, often faintly 
tinged with bluish or greenish, evenly speckled with cinnamon, brown or umber. 
Avy. size, .85x.65 (21.6x 16.5), but quite variable. Scason: April-June. 
General Range.— United States from the Atlantic to the Pacific, north into 
southern British America, south in winter, into Mexico. 
Range in Washington.—Of limited but regular occurrence east of the 
Cascades, increasing; rare or casual in western Washington. Summer resident. 
Authorities.—Bendire, Life Histories of N. A. Birds, Vol. I1., p. 434. 
IDE IDES Sisice fs 1835 12 
Specimens.—C. P. 
WHILE I was chatting with my host at milking time (at the head of 
Lake Chelan in the ante-tourist days), a dun-colored bird with light under- 
parts flew down into the corral, and began foraging as tho to the manor born. 
One by one the cows sniffed at the stranger and nosed it about, following 
it up curiously. But the bird only side-stepped or walked unconcernedly ahead. 
When I returned with the gun, a moment later, I found a calf investigating 
the newcomer, and it was difficult to separate the creature from bossikin’s 
nose. The date was August 3rd; the bird proved to be a young male 
