134 Notice of Audubon^s Birds of America. 



In his history of the chestnut-sided wood warbler, our author 

 says : " Where this species goes to breed I am unable to say, for to 

 my enquiries on this subject I never received any answers which 

 might have led me to the districts resorted to by it. I can only 

 suppose, that if it be at all plentiful in any part of the United 

 States, it must be far to the northward, as I ransacked the borders 

 of Lake Ontario, and those of Lake Erie and Michigan, without 

 meeting with it. I do not know of any naturalist who has been 

 more fortunate, otherwise I should here quote his observations." 

 The writer is somewhat surprised at this, as the bird, although 

 rare, is still occasionally to be found breeding in Massachusetts. 

 He has known of several nests having been discovered in the 

 vicinity of Boston, and is under the impression that he furnished 

 Mr. Audubon, by letter, with a description of a nest and its eggs, 

 which were five in number. Both were very similar to the nest 

 and eggs of the summer yellowbird, Sylvia cestiva, and he re- 

 grets that as the egg of the bird is still in his possession, he was 

 not aware of the desired information in time to furnish it for the 

 text of the present work. 



In his account of the Sylvia ccstiva, so universally and so fa- 

 miliarly known in this portion of the country as the summer yel- 

 lowbird, Mr.Audubon speaks at some length of the ingenuity 

 so often displaj'^ed by individuals of this species, in evading the 

 burthen of the cow bunting. Although not a summer passes 

 that we do not hear of several instances of the remarkable fact, it 

 does not seem to be so generally known as so interesting a display 

 of instinct would seem to deserve. To escape the burthen, both 

 •of hatching the eggs and rearing the young of the cow blackbird, 

 Icterus pecoris, the bird displays the surprising ingenuity narrated 

 in the following extract: "Mr. Nuttall was the first naturalist 

 who observed the very curious method in which it contrives to 

 rid itself of the charge of rearing the young of the cowbird. ' It 

 is amusing,' he says, 'to observe the sagacity of this little bird 

 in disposing of the eggs of the vagrant and parasitic cow troopi- 

 al. The egg deposited before the laying of the rightful tenant, 

 too large for ejectment, is ingeniously incarcerated in the bottom 

 of the nest, and a new lining placed above it, so that it is never 

 hatched to prove the dragon of the brood. Two instances of 

 this kind occurred to the observation of my friend, Mr. Charles 

 Pickering ; and last summer I obtained a nest with the adventi- 



