MOLOTHRUS ATER ! COW-BIRD. 295 



spot more than another in the waving meadow. The 

 nest itself is a slight grassy cup sunken in the ground. 

 The eggs, laid about the first of June, number four or 

 five, and measure about 0.90x0.65 ; they are easily 

 identified, in most cases, by their color, aside from 

 the circumstances under which they are found. The 

 ground is a dull stone-gray, or brownish-white, some- 

 times sordid greenish-white, and the whole surface is 

 variously dotted, blotched, and clouded with chocolate 

 brown, with other indistinct shell-markings; the gen- 

 eral effect being that of a dark heavily-colored egg. 



During the spring and most of the summer the Bob- 

 olink is chiefly insectivorous ; but after that it feeds on 

 seeds and grain, and becomes injurious to the crops. 

 Their special fondness for the seeds of the wild oat 

 occasions their autumnal name of " Reed-bird." The 

 return movement for New England begins late in Au- 

 gust, and is generally completed during September. 



COW-BIRD. 



MOLOTHRUS ATER (Bodd.) Gray. 



Chars. Male : Black, lustrous, with purplish-brown head and neck. 

 Length, 7.50-8.00; wing, 4.00 or more; tail, 3.00 or more. Fe- 

 male smaller : Length, 7.00-7.50 ; wing, 3.75 ; tail, 2.75. Dark- 

 uniform grayish-brown, paler below, with dark shaft-lines on most 

 of the feathers. Bill and feet black in both sexes. Young male 

 at first like the female, but the under parts decidedly streaked. 



This notorious parasite, which occupies in America 

 the place which the Cuckoo fills in Europe, as to its 

 laying its eggs in other birds' nests, is a common sum- 



