COW-BIRD 177 
so that the whole air seemed laden with the strong 
musky smell of their plumage. In the autumn I 
have often watched their migration, usually in flocks 
of fifty to a hundred birds; and these would continue 
passing for hours, flying at a height of twenty or 
thirty feet, and invariably, on coming to water, drop- 
ping down and sweeping low over the surface as if 
wanting to alight and refresh themselves, but unable 
to overcome the impulse urging them to the north, 
they would rise again and travel on. 
Then there were the species that had only a partial 
migration; birds that were residents all the year 
with us, but were migrants from the colder country 
to the south. One was our common dove (Zenaida), 
seen passing in flocks of many thousands; and, 
among the small birds, the common parasitical cow- 
bird. The entire plumage of this Species is a deep 
glossy purple which looks black at a little distance, 
and in late autumn, when great flocks visited our 
plantation, the large bare trees would sometimes 
look as if they had suddenly put on an inky-black 
foliage. This bird too, when migrating from the 
southern pampas and Patagonia, would appear and 
pass in an endless series of flocks, travelling low and 
filling the air with the musical murmur of their wings 
and the musky smell which they too, like the ibis, 
give out from their plumage. 
But of the smaller birds with a limited or partial 
migration, the military Starling on his travels im- 
pressed and delighted me the most. Like a Starling 
in shape, but larger than that bird, it has a dark 
M 
