430 



Brewer^s RemarTcs on 



His first position is undoubtedly sound ; as in every 

 instance, where two cow-buntings have been known to 

 have been hatched in the same nest, it has uniformly 

 resulted in the death of the smaller birds. 



The second position cannot be so readily admitted. 

 That it does frequently occur is undisputed, but that the 

 reverse is much more frequently the case is equally unde- 

 niable. The very fact that the circumstance was unknown 

 to men of such observation as Wilson, Audubon and Nut- 

 tall, should make us hesitate, before, from a few occasional 

 instances, we set it down at once, as a general rule.. 



The third rule Mr. Ord founds upon the circumstance 

 before alluded to, of his twice finding the egg of a troopial 

 in the nest of the wood-thrush. Upon these slight grounds 

 he does not hesitate to set it down as a general rule, that 

 larger birds invariably hatch these eggs when entrusted 

 to their care. If new rules are to be admitted as well- 



^ 



founded, and old ones to be dismissed as unfounded, upon 

 such slight grounds and groundless inferences as Mr. Ord 

 would have them, the laws of nature, unchanging and 

 immutable as they in reality are, will be made to appear 

 as uncertain as the sands of the sea-shore. If he had 

 merely assumed that this fact held true with the wood- 

 thrush, nothing could have beeri said ; but what right has 

 he to assume that the same is the case with every other 

 bird, larger than the cow black-bird ? it is well known 

 that the cat-bird invariably removes the eggs of strange 

 birds not merely of different, but even of the same spe- 

 , cies, and the robin as invariably forsakes her nest if thus 

 intrude(^upon. And until Mr. Ord can adduce satisfac- 

 toiy proof that the troopial is hatched and nursed in the 

 nest of the meadow lark, the Baltimore oriole, the red- 

 winged black-bird, the king-bird, the ferruginous thrush, 



