CO W-B U N TI NG. 



159 



;vtro, I took from the nest of the Maryland yellow 

 tliroat, &c. * * * I claim, however, no 

 merit for a discovery not originally my own, these 

 singular habits having' long been known to people of 

 observation resident in the country, whose informa- 

 tion, in this case, has preceded that of all our school 

 philosophers and closet naturalists, to whom the 

 matter ha?, till now, been totally unknown. 



" About the twenty-fifth of March, or early in 

 April, the cow-pen bird makes its first appearance in 

 Pennsylvania from the South, sometimes in company 

 with the red-winged blackbird," (or troopial, Aglains 

 pheeniceus,) " more frequently in detached parties, 

 resting, early in tiie morning, an hour at a time, on 

 the tops of trees near streams of water, appearing 

 solitary, silent, and fatigued. They continue to be 

 occasionally seen, in small solitary parties, particu- 

 larly along creeks and banks of rivers, so late as the 

 middle of June ; after which we see no more of them 

 until about the beginning or middle of October, when 

 they re-appear in much larger rlocks, generally accom- 

 panied by numbers of the red-wing*" (troopials) ; 

 " between whom and the present species there is a 

 considerable similarity of manners, dialect, and pcr- 

 .sonal resemblance. In these aerial voyages, like 

 other experienced navigators, they take advantage of 

 the direction of the wind, and always set out with a 

 favourable gale. 



# # * # 



" From the early period at which these birds pass 

 in the spring, it is highly probable that their migra- 

 tions extend very far north. Those which pass in 

 the months of March and April, can have no oppor- 

 tunity of depositing their eggs here," (in the United 

 States,) " there being not more than one or two of our 

 small birds which build so early. Those that pass in 

 M-.iy and June are frequently observed loitering 

 about solitary thickets, reconnoitering, no doubt, for 

 proper nurses, to whose care they may commit the 

 hatching of their eggs and the care of their helpless 

 orphans. Among the birds selected for this duty are 

 the following. * * * The bluebird" 

 (Sialia Wilsonii}, " which builds in a hollow tree; the 

 chipping sparrow" ( Emberizoides socialis], "in a cedar 

 bush ; the golden-crowned thrush-pipit" (Scturus auri- 

 i-aj)illns\ "on the ground, in the shape of an oven ; 

 the red-eyed fly-catcher" (l r irct> olivacetis), "a neat 

 pensile nest, hung by the two upper edges on a small 

 sapling or drooping branch; the yellow-bird" (or 

 American gold-finch, Carduclis luteus], " in the fork of 

 an elder ; the Maryland yellow-throat" (Triclias per- 

 sonntus, a little bird somewhat allied to the European 

 hedge chanter), " on the ground, at the roots of 

 brier bushes; the white-eyed fly-catcher" (flreo 

 Noveboracetuit), " a pensile nest, on the bending of a 

 vine; and the small blue-grey fly-catcher" ( Culicivora 

 cterulcn), " also a pensile nest, fastened to the slender 

 twigs of a tree, sometimes at the height of fifty or 

 sixty feet from the ground. There are, no doubt, 

 others to whom the same charge is committed ; but 

 all these I have myself met with acting in that 

 capacity. 



" Among these, the yellow-throat and the red-eyed 

 fly-catcher appear to be particular favourites, and the 

 kindness and affectionate attention which these two 

 little birds seem to pay to their nurslings, fully justify 

 the partiality of the parents. 



" It is well known to those who have paid attention 

 lo the manners of birds, that, after their nest is fully 



finished, a day or two generally elapses before the 

 female begins to lay. This delay is, in most cases, 

 necessary to give firmness to the yet damp materials, 

 and allow them time to dry. In this state it is some- 

 times met with, and laid in by the cow-bunting ; the 

 result of which, I have invariably found, to be the 

 desertion of the nest by its rightful owner, and the 

 consequent loss of the egg thus dropt in it by the 

 intruder. But when the owner herself has begun to 

 lay, and there are one or two more eggs in the nest 

 before the cow-bunting deposits hers, the attachment of 

 the proprietor is secured, and remains unshaken until 

 incubation is fully performed, and the little stranger 

 is able to provide for itself." There is a little here at 

 variance with the habit of the cuckoo of Europe, 

 which is, always to destroy whatever other eggs 

 there may be in a nest into which she introduces her 

 own ; any eggs, therefore, which are ever found 

 together with that of the cuckoo, have usually not 

 been laid till after its deposition ; never, in fact, but 

 in cases where the cuckoo had been disturbed, as she 

 sometimes is by the proper owners of the nest, before 

 she had had time to finish her operations ; an instance 

 of which was once observed by the writer of this. 

 See CUCKOO. 



" The well known practice of the young cuckoo of 

 Europe," continues Wilson, " in turning out all the 

 eggs" (?) " and young which it feels around it, almost 

 as soon as it is hatched, has been detailed in a very 

 satisfactory and amusing manner by the amiable Dr. 

 Jenner *, who has since risen to immortal celebrity in 

 a much nobler pursuit, and to whose genius and 

 humanity the whole human race are under everlasting 

 obligations. In our cow-bunting, though no such 

 habit has been observed, yet still there is something 

 mysterious in the disappearance of the nurse's own 

 eggs soon after the foundling is hatched, which 

 happens regularly before all the rest. From twelve 

 to fourteen days is the usual time of incubation of 

 our small birds ; but although I cannot exactly fix 

 the precise period requisite for the egg of the cow- 

 bunting, I think I can say almost positively, that it is 

 a day or two less than the shortest of the above- 

 mentioned species ! In this singular circumstance we 

 see a striking provision of the Deity ; for, did this egg 

 require a day or two more, instead of so much less, 

 than those smaller eggs among which it has been 

 dropped, the young it contained would, in every 

 instance, most inevitably perish ; and thus, in a few 

 years, the whole species must become extinct. On 

 the first appearance of the young cow-bunting, the 

 parent being frequently obliged to leave the nest to 

 provide sustenance for the foundling, the business of 

 incubation is thus necessarily interrupted ; the dis- 

 position to continue it abates ; nature has now given 

 a new direction to the zeal of the parent, and the 

 remaining eggs, within a day or two at most, generally 

 disappear. In some instances, indeed, they have 

 been found on the ground near, or below, the nest ; 

 but this is rarely the case. 



" I have never known more than one egg of the 

 cow-bunting dropped into the same nest. This egg 

 is somewhat larger than that of the blue-bird" (that 

 is to say, about the size of that of the yellow-bunting 

 of Europe), " thickly sprinkled with grains of pale 

 brown on a dirty w hite ground it is of a size propor- 



See Philosophical Transactions for 1788. Part 11. 



