THE COWBIRD. 435 



latter part of May, 1894, along- the line of the Canadian Pacific Railway, small 

 parties of from six to twelve being almost constantly in sight, evidently on their 

 way to their breeding grounds. 



The most northern point where its eggs have been taken appears to be in 

 the vicinity of Little Slave Lake, in southern Athabasca, in latitude 55° 30' N. 

 Mr. S. Jones, of the Hudson Bay Company, forwarded specimens from there to 

 the Smithsonian Institution in 1868, but it is quite probable that this species 

 ranges farther north. 



Although I have traveled extensively over our westernmost States and Ter- 

 ritories, I noticed the Cowbird on but very few occasions, and only found its eggs 

 there twice; once on June 21, 1871, near Fort Lapwai, Idaho, in the nest of the 

 Long-tailed Chat, Ideria virens longicauda, and again near Palouse Falls, in 

 southeastern Washington, on June 18, 1878, in a nest of the Slate-colored Spar- 

 row, Passerella iliaca schistacea. This I believe is the most Avestern breeding 

 record known. 



Both of these specimens are now in the United States National Museum 

 collection. 



The most southern breeding records I have knowledge of are from Wayne 

 and Mcintosh counties, Georgia; Petite Anse Island, Louisiana, and Harris 

 County, Texas. It does not appear to breed anywhere in the immediate vicinity 

 of the Gulf coast in Texas, where it is replaced by its smaller relative, the Dwarf 

 Cowbird. While the majority of these birds pass beyond our borders in the late 

 fall and winter, mainly to southern Mexico, still a good many remain in our 

 Southern States, and a few even winter occasionally as far north as New Eng- 

 land, Michigan, etc. 



Dr. G Brown Goode tells me that while on the German Lloyd steamer 

 Neckar, in April, 1880, a Cowbird flew on board, fully 1,000 miles east of New- 

 foundland, and was captured. 



The Cowbird ordinarily arrives in good-sized flocks in the Middle States, 

 from its winter home in the South, during the last half of March; in the more 

 northern States, rarely before the first week in April, and more frequently after 

 the middle of this month, the males predominating in numbers over the more 

 plainly colored females, and generally precede them several days. Soon after, 

 these flocks commence to break up and scatter in small companies of from six to 

 twelve individuals and disperse generally over the country. It prefers more or 

 less cultivated districts, river valleys, etc., where other birds are abundant, and 

 rarely penetrates far into heavily timbered sections or mountainous regions, 

 excepting in Colorado, where it has been met with at altitudes up to 8,000 feet. 



The food of the Cowbird consists principally of vegetable matter, such as 

 seeds of different kinds of noxious weeds, like ragweed, smartweed, foxtail or 

 pigeon grass, wild rice and the smaller species of grains, berries of different 

 kinds, as well as of grasshoppers, beetles, ticks, flies, and other insects, worms, etc. 

 Taking its food alone into consideration it does perhaps more good than harm. 



While the Cowbird is fairly common in most of the States east of the 

 Mississippi River, it is far more noticeable in the regions west of this stream, 



