THE TRAGEDIES OF THE NESTS. 81 



she will remove one of them. I found a sparrow's 

 nest with two sparrow's eggs and one cow-bird's egg, 

 and another egg lying a foot or so below it on the 

 ground. I replaced the ejected egg, and the next day 

 found it again removed, and another cow-bird's egg 

 in its place ; I put it back the second time, when it 

 was again ejected, or destroyed, for I failed to find 

 it anywhere. Very alert and sensitive birds like the 

 warblers often bury the strange egg beneath a second 

 nest built on top of the old. A lady, living in the 

 suburbs of an eastern city, one morning heard cries 

 of distress from a pair of house-wrens that had a nest 

 in a honeysuckle on her front porch. On looking out 

 of the window, she beheld this little comedy com- 

 edy from her point of view, but no doubt grim trag- 

 edy from the point of view of the wrens : a cow-bird 

 with a wren's egg in its beak running rapidly along 

 the walk, with the outraged wrens forming a pro- 

 cession behind it, screaming, scolding, and gesticu- 

 lating as only these voluble little birds can. The 

 cow-bird had probably been surprised in the act of 

 violating the nest, and the wrens were giving her a 

 piece of their minds. 



Every cow-bird is reared at the expense of two or 

 more song-birds. For every one of these dusky little 

 pedestrians there amid the grazing cattle there are 

 two or more sparrows, or vireos, or warblers, the less. 

 It is a big price to pay two larks for a bunting 

 two sovereigns for a shilling ; but Nature does not 

 hesitate occasionally to contradict herself in just this 



