the Cow Black'Bird. 423 



hatched the first ? I will not detain you with a detail of 

 his observations ; their amount is, that in several instances 

 he found the parasite and the young of the owner of the 

 nest hatched during the same night. But what right has 

 he to assume, that the cow-troopial was not hatched 

 twelve hours before the others? On one occasion, he 

 found a nest of the indigo bird, containins: one eorp- of the 

 cow-troopial and three legitimate eggs : eleven days after 

 he found the egg of the troopial hatched and two of the 

 indigo bird's. The egg-shell of the former, and that of 

 one of the latter, remained in the nest. The other had 

 been removed. From this Mr. Ord infers that the last 

 was the first hatched. This assumption is entirely gratui- 

 tous ; and until it be admitted that birds uniformly remove 

 their egg-shells within a certain time after the eggs have 



(which indeed, M 



:) 



beg leave to wait for more satisfactory proof before we 



can 



Wilson 



Audubon and Nuttall, sustained by their actual observa- 

 tions and proved in every instance to be the fact, w^hen 

 the case would admit of proof All that has yet been 

 proved, on the opposite side of the question, is, that the 



night as the cow-troopial. 



dimn 



,v 



Mr 



is undoubtedly, in part, correct. But that it holds good 

 in most instances is still undeniable ; and the few instances 

 to the contrary that have been cited, must be regarded as 

 but exceptions to a very general rule, Mr. Ord, how- 

 ever, has but echoed a fact, in the discovery of which he 

 has been anticipated by Nuttall, who speaks of the red- 

 eyed vireo " faithfully nursing the foundling along with 

 her own brood." 



f: 



■\ 



