124 BIRDS OF LA PLATA 



invariably greet his approach with a loud vigorous 

 remonstrance* 



In October the birds break up their companies to 

 pair* Sometimes they breed on the open plain in a 

 large cardoon thistle, but a thick bush or low tree is 

 preferred. The nest is like that of a Thrush, being 

 deep, compactly made of dry grass and slender sticks, 

 plastered inside with mud, and lined with hair or 

 soft, dry grass. It is, however, deeper and more 

 symmetrical than the Thrush's nest, and it is some- 

 times plastered with cow-dung instead of with mud. 

 The eggs are four, very long, white, and abundantly 

 spotted with deep red, the spots becoming confluent 

 at the large end. 



The Yellow-breast is never seen to quarrel with its 

 fellows or with other birds, and it is possibly due to 

 its peaceful disposition that it is more victimised by 

 the parasitical Molothrus than any other bird, I have 

 frequently found their nests full of parasitical eggs, 

 as many as fourteen and in one case sixteen in one 

 nest. In some seasons all the nests I found and 

 watched were eventually abandoned by the birds on 

 account of the number of parasitical eggs dropped 

 in them, I have also so frequently found parasitical 

 eggs on the ground under the nest that I believe the 

 Yellow-breast throws out some of these foreign eggs, 

 and in one instance I was quite sure that this had 

 happened. The nest was in a cardoon bush and 

 contained five eggs two of the Yellow-breast and 

 three parasitical. These three were of the variety 

 most thickly mottled with red, and consequently 



