BIRDS THAT ARE BOARDED OUT 61 



to avoid cuckoos and emigrated to America 

 would find themselves no better off there ; 

 for though all the American cuckoos are 

 honest, other American birds have taken up 

 the idea of boarding out their families. 



These are the birds which are known as 

 cow-birds ; they are something like starlings in 

 appearance and ways, but have thick, short 

 beaks, more like those of finches, and, like 

 finches, they eat a great deal of seed as well 

 as insects. The common cow-bird of North 

 America quite takes the place of the cuckoo 

 here, depositing its eggs in the nests of various 

 little insect-eating birds. The result is very 

 much the same; only the young cow-bird is 

 reared, and the other little birds disappear; 

 most likely they are starved to death and 

 thrown out by the old ones, as the cow-bird 

 does not seem to throw them out like the young 

 cuckoo. But some of these American foster- 

 birds do not see the fun of rearing cow-bird 

 chicks if they can help it, and these get out 

 of the difficulty, not by throwing out the 

 strange egg, as one would expect, but by build- 

 ing another floor to the nest on top of it, and 

 sometimes, if they are unlucky enough to 



