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432 Brewer^s Remarks on 



but with it; her own. In this upper story she had evi- 

 dently succeeded in raising her second brood in safety. 

 In the centre of this nest, I found these four eggs thus 

 singularly incarcerated. 



There is also another circumstance to which I would 

 direct your attention. There are found two kinds of 

 parasite eggs so different in marking, as to warrant us m 

 considering them the product of different species, did 

 we know any other than the cow-troopial to which to 

 attribute one of them. One of these eggs is " thickly 

 sprinkled over with grains of pale brown on a dirty white 

 ground." Its thickness is nearly the same throughout- 

 This is the egg of the cow black-bird. The other egg is 

 considerably larger in size, one end is evidently much 

 more pointed than the other, its ground is pure white and 

 the spots are much more sparing and are of a much deeper 

 tint of brown, nearly approaching to black. To what bird 

 does this egg belong? If to the cow-troopial, in what 

 manner shall we explain this unusual difference ? If not, 

 to what bird shall we attribute it ? Nuttall, in his account 

 of the ambiguous sparrow, which he supposes a new 

 species, asks, " may not this be the offspring of the white 

 and more sparingly spotted egg, deposited occasionally m 

 the nests of the cow-bird^s nurses ?'^ If so, why is not 

 this rare bird proportionally common with its egg ? 



One word, before concluding, on our cuckoos. To 

 show how little these birds deserve the obloquy with 

 which they are too often inconsiderately regarded, 1 will 

 relate a trivial, but not uninteresting circumstance, which 

 fell under my own observation. A nest of the black- 

 billed cuckoo, containing three young, was found in Cam- 

 bridge in th6 summer of 1835, and the female, brutally 

 shot in the nest by a boy. The young, so far from per- 



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