358 PERCHING BIRDS. 



appear to be at all in a hurry, as we see them by day. They throw themselves in 

 a field, scatter on the ground feeding, and at the slightest alarm, or in mere wanton- 

 ness, suddenly fly en masse to the nearest tree, fence, or bush, and begin to sing, 

 producing an indescribable medley, hushed in an instant only to be resumed. 

 Sometimes they sing as merrily, though with less concerted action, while the}' art- 

 rambling in the grass. Their daytime leisure for song and food is easily explained : 

 for they migrate at this season almost entirely by night. Every night in early 

 May, as we walk the streets, we can hear the mellow metallic clinking coming 

 down through the darkness, from birds passing high overhead, and sounding clearer 

 in the stillness. By the middle of May they have all passed ; a few, it is stated, 

 linger to breed south of New England, but the main body passes on, spreading 

 over that portion of the Union and the neighbouring British provinces, occupying 

 in pairs almost every meadow. The change of plumage is completed before the 

 return movement is made." Millions return on their southern journey, late in the 

 summer and during September. They are now songless, but have a comfortable, 

 self-satisfied chink, befitting such fat and abandoned gourmands as they are, 

 thronging in countless hordes the wild rice-tracts and the grain-fields. So they go 

 until the first cold snap that sends them into winter- quarters at once. The 

 bobolink nests upon the ground, making a rude and flimsy structure of dried grass, 

 which is artfully concealed. It lays four or five eggs, bluish-white in ground- 

 colour, blotched ami spotted with dark chocolate. The male in the breeding- 

 season has the head and lower-parts black : the hind-neck buff: the scapulars, 

 rump, and upper tail-coverts ashy white; tin- interscapulars streaked with black, 

 buff, and ashy; and the outer quills edged with yellowish. The nuptial garb just 

 described is, however, unlike the plain plumage worn by both sexes after the 

 breeding-season, when the general colour of the plumage in yellowish brown above, 

 and brownish yellow below : the crown and back being conspicuously streaked 

 with black, and the wings and tail blackish. 



Nearly allied to the last genus, the cow-birds possess a short, conical 

 bill, long and pointed wings, slightly rounded tail, and strong feet. In 

 the majority of the species black is the prevailing colour, being sometimes lustrous, 

 with bronzed reflections. The cow-birds are mainly a South American genus, 

 although one species is only too well known in the United States. Some of the 

 species seize upon the nests of other birds, and having driven away the rightful 

 possessors, proceed to rear their own young in their new home. The majority, how- 

 ever, are more truly parasitical, depositing their eggs in other birds' nests, and 

 leaving the strangers to hatch and rear their own offspring. The common cow-bird 

 (Molothrufi pecoris) of the United States is a polygamous species: the sexes never 

 mating, and their association being merely a herding together in quest of food. " In 

 the West," says Dr. Coues, " every waggon-train passing over the prairies in summer 

 is attended bj T flocks of these birds ; every camp and stock coral, permanent or 

 temporary, is besieged by the busy birds, eager to glean subsistence upon the 

 wasted forage. Their familiarity under these circumstances is surprising. Per- 

 petually wandering about the feet of the draught animals, or perching upon their 

 backs, they become so accustomed to man's presence that they will hardly get out 

 of the way. I have even known a young bird to sutler itself to be taken in the 



