DOMESTIC ECONOMY 



which it is attached in a slightly different fashion, and 

 thus ensuring variability of sound, exists in the Passerines 

 than in any other birds. The birds that come nearest 

 to them are the parrots, with whose powers of varied 

 utterance every one is familiar. It is curious that per- 

 fection of voice organ does not go hand in hand with 

 variability of voice. The hoarse crow and the melodious 

 nightingale have a practically identical syrinx. But 

 then, after all, the voice of the prima donna is more 

 flexible and varied than that of the itinerant vendor of 

 cat's meat, though both have a voice-producing organ 

 of identical structure. Externally the Passerinea are to 

 be detected by the four toes, of which the hind toe is 

 very prominent and turned backwards, and by the 

 fewness of the scales upon the legs. With this much by 

 way of a preface we shall consider a typical Passerine 

 bird, the cow bird, or more correctly the cow-pen bird, 

 so called on account of its fondness for visiting cow- pens. 

 This bird, known to science as Molothrus (or, more 

 correctly, as it appears, Molobrus, the former name 

 having been originally a misprint) bonariensis, is black 

 in hue throughout, and is naturally also called the 

 blackbird. It is of about the same size as the blackbird 

 of this country, and is like it, a typical Passerine, with 

 the same voice organ and structure in general. It is, 

 indeed, the habits and not the structure of this bird 

 which are so interesting and unexpected. Every one 

 knows of the parasitic way of life of the immoral cuckoo, 

 who entrusts to strangers the rearing of its young, and 

 who, besides thus evading the duties as well as the 

 pleasure of maternity and paternity, is, when young 

 and in the foreign nest, a bloodthirsty tyrant to its 

 fellow nestlings ; these, the rightful owners of the nest, 

 it turns out and leaves to die upon the hard ground 

 beneath. This very same habit is inherent in the 

 Molothrus bonariensis, and in some of the other species 



157 



