—33- 



ful owner. Strang-ely enoug-h, the birds thus 

 imposed upon do not seem to understand the 

 imposition and therefore accept the uncalled- 

 for donations and set on the eg-g-s, hatch them 

 and rear the alien young- as their own. It is 

 quite probable that many species of birds are 

 never aware of the imposition, as the cow- 

 bird's eg-g-s much resemble those of many 

 species of birds, but this is not the case in 

 half the instances, for while the egg- of the 

 imposter is light colored, white, in fact, and 

 covered with small dots of brown, they are 

 frequently laid in the nests of the Woodthrush 

 which lays blue, unmarked eggs, as well as in 

 over a score of other species of birds' nests, 

 which contain entirely dissimilar egg-s, both 

 as to size and color. For instance, I have 

 found three of these speckled eggs in a nest 

 where the bluebirds had laid five eggs. The 

 queer subject of this sketch often lays its 

 eg-g-s in the nests of much smaller species 

 than itself, and it is not unusual to find these 

 unsolicited deposits in the nests where the 

 egg-s of the rig-htful owners are not of more 

 than half the weight of the Cowbird's. 



But notwithstanding- that the larg-e major- 

 ity of the birds accept the orphan eg-gs and 

 rear the imposed foundlings as if they were 

 their own, a few species of birds - attempt, 



