COW-BIRDS. 



19 



beyond a low grunting sound as an apology for a song, 

 but there is no doubt that some examples are somewhat 

 more musical. 



PURPLE COW-BIRD (Molothnis purpurascew). 



Male nearly resembling the preceding species, but 

 with rather stronger bill and feet. Female pale dust- 

 brown with dusky mottling ; browner above and paler 

 below than that sex of .. bonariensis. Hab., Lima 

 (Peru). 



This is probably only a local race of the Silky Cow- 

 bird ; it is, however, apparently less numerous, as 

 Taczanmvski speaks of it as usually forming small com- 

 panies in which the number of females and young greatly 

 exceeds that of the males. These birds, like their rela- 

 tives, accompany troops of cattle and horses, especially 

 the latter. He 'describes the song as very varied and 

 pleasing. This species has been exhibited at the London 

 Zoological Gardens. 



GLOSSY COW-BIRD (Molothrus utronitons). 



Male very similar to M. bonariensis, but more shot 

 with violet blue, and with more metallic-green gloss 

 on wings and tail ; it appears to be a trifle smaller. 

 Female dark brown, with a faint purplish tinge ; below 

 paler. Hab. : Guiana, Venezuela, and Trinidad. 



Another local form of the Silky Cow-bird, which I 

 am satisfied has been offered to me on at least one 

 occasion. Russ says that Miss Hagenbeck received it, 

 and also C. Reiche. 



BAY COW-KIRD (Molothrus badius). 



Brownish ashy ; wings chestnut or cinnamon ; the 

 tips of primaries, inner portions of secondaries, and 

 the tail blackish; under surface rather paler; bill black, 

 feet black ; hides brown. Female slightly smaller and 

 duller. Hab : Argentina, Paraguay, and Bolivia. 

 Hudson ("Argentine Ornithology," pp. 96, 97) says: 

 " The bay-wings usually go in. small flocks, numbering 

 from ten to thirty individuals, and are not migratory, 

 but in winter they travel about a great deal from place 

 to place without extending their journeys more than 

 a few miles in any direction. They are fond of coming 

 about houses, and are frequently seen pecking at the 

 fresh meat hanging out of doors ; and, like other birds 

 of the same tribe, feed chiefly on the ground. They 

 spend a great portion of their time on trees, are familiar 

 with man, and inactive, and in their motions singularly 

 slow and deliberate. Their language is varied. 

 Curiosity or alarm is expressed by trilling notes, and 

 before quitting a tree all the birds of a flock cere- 

 moniously invite each other to fly, with long clear notes, 

 powerful enough to be heard a quarter of a mile away. 

 " They also sing a great deal in all seasons, the song 

 being composed of soft, clear, rather sweet notes, 

 variously modulated, uttered in a leisurely manner, 

 and seeming to express a composed frame of mind, all 

 the birds in a flock singing in concert. During the 

 cold season the flock always finds some sheltered sunny 

 spot on the north side of a wood-pile or hedge, where 

 they spend several hours every day, sitting still and 

 singing in their usual quiet, soft, style. 



"Their extreme sociability affects their breeding 

 habits, for sometimes the flock does not break up in 

 spring, and several females lay in one nest together ; 

 but whether the birds are paired or practice a pro- 

 miscuous intercourse I have not been able to discover. 

 They have a great partiality for the large domed nests 

 made by the Amimbivs acuticaudatuS, called Lenatero 



in the vernacular. One summer a flock of about ten 

 Bay-wings took possession of a Leilatero's nest on one 

 of my trees, and after a few days I took fourteen 

 eggs from it. Though the birds hopped, chirping 

 round me, manifesting great solicitude, the eggs were 

 quite cold, and had I left them many more would have 

 been laid, no doubt; but as they were piled up three 

 or four deep in the nest they could never have been 

 hatched. 



" As a rule, however, the flock breaks up into pairs; 

 and then a neat, well-made nest is built in the fork 

 of a branch, lined with horsehair ; or, of tener still, a 

 Lenatero's nest is seized, the Bay-wings fighting with 

 great spirit to get possession, and in it, or on it, their 

 own nest is made. Like their relation, the Common 

 Cow-bird, they seem strongly attracted by domed nests, 

 and yet shrink from laying in the dark interior; as a 

 rule, when they have captured a Lenatero's nest, they 

 break a hole in the side, and so admit the light, and 

 form an easy entrance. One summer a pair of Bay- 

 wings attacked a Lenatero's nest on one of my trees ; 

 the fighting was kept up for three or four days, and 

 then at the foot of the tree I found five young Lenateros. 

 fully fledged, which had been pecked to death and 

 thrown out of the nest. 



" The eggs of the Bay-wing are five in number, nearly 

 round, and densely marked with dusky reddish brown. 



" Once I observed two young Bay-wings following a 

 Yellow-breast (Pseudoleistes> virescens) with their usual 

 peculiar hunger-cry, and while I watched them they 

 were fed several times by their foster-parents. 

 Naturally, I concluded that the Bay-winged Cow-bird 

 is sometimes parasitical on other species, but I 

 never saw anything afterwards to confirm me in this 

 belief, and I believe now that I was mistaken, and 

 that the young Bay-wings were not real Bay-wings, but 

 the young of Molothrus rufoaxillaris." 



Dr. Russ does not seem to have thought much of the 

 song of this bird; he calls it "more wonderful than 

 agreeable"; and Alexander von Homeyer says that 

 " the powerful strophe sounds admirably like something 

 between the confused chirping of many small birds and 

 the shrieking song of New Holland Parrots." Dr. 

 Russ tried to breed the species, but failed. He speaks 

 of it as one of the birds which arrives regularly in the 

 market ; but I cannot say that I have ever seen it in 

 any English bird-shop, possibly for the very reasons 

 which Russ gives for its general rejection by the 

 initiated, who are aware of its malicious disposition 

 towards other birds and anything but melodious song,* 

 for which reasons, he says, we hardly ever see it ex- 

 cepting in zoological gardens. It first reached those of 

 Amsterdam in 1838, and those of London in 1860. 



CHILIAN MARSH-TROUPIAL (Curceus aterrimus) . 



Sooty black, sometimes with slight greenish reflections 

 and paler shaft-stripes on upper surface ; feathers of 

 head lanceolate and somewhat rigid ; bill and feet 

 black; hides dark brown. Female not differentiated, 

 but with a greyish indigo gloss, and with shorter and 

 less tapering bill. Hab. : Chili and Western Patagonia 

 to the Magellan Straits. 



In his handsome work on the " Birds of Tierra del 

 Fuego," pp. 56, 57, Captain Crawshay says: "The 

 Black Starling is a common bird in the scrub-covered, 

 well-watered slopes of the Sierra Carmen Sylva, also 

 in similar country elsewhere. It is resident the entire 



* His actual words, epoken satirically, are " its nothing 1 I*BS 

 than melodious song " ; his later statements show that he wa* 

 not in earnest. 





