AMERICAN ORNITHOLOGY 



The cowbirds form one of the most interesting groups of birds 

 found in our country. Interesting, not because of any particular value 

 but because of their peculiar and unusual mode of life. They stand 

 alone among American birds as the only ones who construct no nest 

 of their own. They are literally a band of roving freebooters claim- 

 ing the whole country as their home and having at no time any one 

 place in which their affections are centered. 



NEST OF CHESTNUT-SIDED WARBLER 

 CONTAINING ONE EGG OF THE COWBIRD. 



Why this bird, and by the way the male Cowbird is surpassed in 

 beauty by no other blackbird, should select this manner of life is a 

 mystery. If it were not for their nesting habits and the fact that they 

 are polygamus to the last degree, they would find many friends, but 

 their unique habits have brought upon them the condemilation of near- 

 ly every man, woman and child in the country. On the ranches in the 

 west Cowbirds are the most numerous. There they literally swarm 

 about the cattle and feed on the grubs that are dislodged by the latter 

 as they feed. It is no uncommon sight to see them perched on the 

 backs of some of these animals, where they will sit for a long time in 

 apparent contentment. In New England they are not so common, yet 

 I rarely spend a day in the woods without meeting with several of 

 them. 



