280 BIRDS OF ONTARIO. 



In Southern Ontario the merry, rollicking Bobolink is well known 

 to all who have occasion to pass by the clover fields, or moist 

 meadows, in summer. He attracts attention then by his fantastic 

 dress of black and white, as well as by his gay and festive manner, 

 while he seeks to cheer and charm his modest helpmate, who, in 

 humble garb of yellowish-brown, spends much of her time concealed 

 among the grass. Toward the close of the season, the holiday dress- 

 and manners of the male are laid aside, and by the time the birds 

 are ready to depart, male and female, young and old, are clad 

 alike in uniform brownish-yellow. The merry, jingling notes are 

 succeeded by a simple chink which serves to keep the flocks together,, 

 and is often heard overhead at night in the early part of September. 

 In the south, where they get very fat, they are killed in great 

 numbers for the table. 



GENUS MOLOTHRUS SWAINSON. 

 MOLOTHRUS ATER (BODD.). 



202. Cowbird. (495) 



Male: Iridescent black ; head and neck purplish-brown. Female: Smaller, 

 an obscure-looking bird, nearly imiform dusky grayish -brown, but rather paler 

 below, and appearing somewhat streaky, owing to darker shaft lines on nearly 

 all the feathers ; bill and feet black in both sexes. Length, 7^-8 ; wing, over 4 ; 

 tail, over 3. 



HAB. United States, from the Atlantic to the Pacific, north into Southern 

 British America, south, in winter, into Mexico. 



Nest, none. 



Eggs, deposited in the nest of another bird, dull white, thickly dotted,, 

 and sometimes blotched with brown ; number uncertain. 



In Southern Ontario nearly all the Cowbirds are migratory, but 

 on two occasions I have seen them located here in winter. There 

 were in each instance ten or a dozen birds which stayed by the 

 farm-house they had selected for their winter residence, and roosted 

 on the beams above the cattle in the cow-house. Early in April 

 the migratory flocks arrive from the south, and soon they are seen in 

 small solitary parties, chiefly in pasture-fields and by the banks of 

 streams all over the country. 



At this interesting season of the year, when all other birds are 

 mated and are striving to make each other happy in the faithful 

 discharge of their various domestic duties, the Cowbirds, despising 



