BIRDS OF THE UNITED STATES. 
267 
gaze of detection, this bird is wont to eye everything with inquisitiveness 
and distrust. Peering down upon you through the dense foliage, there is 
nothing in its looks to command your pity ; hut you are reminded of one 
who has been guilty of wrong, and who fears the consequences. Where 
accustomed to man, a radical change seems to come over its demeanor. 
The eye looks out with a milder expression. When we remember that, 
like the Jays, these birds are abandoned thieves who pilfer the eggs of 
other and weaker birds, and even devour their helpless offspring, we are 
not surprised that they should be so sneaking in their actions, and coward- 
like. But when the mating period arrives, one would think that the 
arousing of the hitherto dormant amatory forces into normal activity, 
would tend to soften their natures, and call into play a better state of 
feelings. So it does, hut only so far as to reconcile the sexes to each 
other, and force them to forsake their selfish lives. Towards other species 
they still preserve the same unfriendly relations. 
The male, who arrives ten days before the female, is the first to expe- 
rience a desire for a change of life. Tired of aimless wanderings, he goes 
off in search of a companion. He is not long in finding one. A recital 
of his love, in his own peculiar fashion, soon gains a willing listener, 
and business is settled in an instant. There is none of that amusing 
frivolity which is known to mark the actions of many of our feathered 
creatures. He proposes, she accepts, and the matrimonial knot is tied, at 
least, for another season. While the sexes do not manifest any apparent 
regard for each other for two or three weeks after their first arrival, being 
chiefly absorbed in the procurement of food, yet they do not wholly desert 
each other, hut feed within calling distance. From long observations, con- 
tinued through nearly two decades, we are led to believe that the same 
birds mate annually, unless prevented by the death of one or the other. 
In the choice of a tree these birds are somewhat fastidious in some 
localities. A preference is often manifested for some species of evergreen, 
hut not unfrequently are they tempted to nest in an osage orange, a bar- 
berry bush, a thorn, or an apple. The kind of a bush or tree will doubt- 
