228 NEW YORK STATE MUSEUM 



Yellow warblers and Phoebe birds, as well as many other species, not one 

 in my experience has ever been accompanied at the same time by any 

 of the parent's own offspring, showing that in every instance the Cowbird 

 destroys the rightful inhabitants of the nest. Frequently the mother 

 Cowbird herself assists in this destruction by picking holes in the eggs 

 she finds in the nest, or by casting them out upon the ground; but this 

 is unnecessary as the young Cowbird always will effect this result if left 

 to himself alone. I have noticed in several instances that interesting 

 species as, for instance, the Yellow-breasted chat and the Yellow-throated 

 vireo, which came to the hillside near my camp on Canandaigua lake and 

 were parasitized by the Cowbird, never returned to nest in the locality. 

 I had become enthvisiastic over the vireos and the chats that sang to 

 me every morning as I sat by the campside and was counting on a fine 

 brood of young ones which might return the next season and enliven our 

 surroundings; but although I should have been wiser and discovered the 

 nest to see that all was going well, I tmsted to nature in each instance 

 and what was my disgust when the young came from the nest to find the 

 Yellow-throated vireos leading around one disgusting Cowbird instead 

 of their brood of young, and the chats deserted the hillside in the middle 

 of July. They evidently were disgusted in their season's occupation or, 

 having been killed during their southward migration, never returned. 

 So these instances, like others of my personal experience, are typical of 

 numberless instances that could be noted of birds which fail to rear their 

 young and consequently never return to the nesting site again. When 

 we consider this influence which the Cowbird exerts on our avifauna, I can 

 not consent to consider him othenA^ise than as an injurious neighbor. 



Cowbirds are not only parasites but polygamists and free lovers in 

 habit. Small troops of several males and a few females are found all 

 through the breeding season flying arotmd together and walking about 

 on the lawns with spritely step, pruning their glossy plumage and exulting 

 in the freedom from family cares, the males occasionally uttering their 

 uncouth guttural notes and the females, when startled or when seated 



