32 MY STUDIO NEIGHBORS 



until her eyes are opened by the fateful denoue- 

 ment of a few weeks later. And thus the Ameri- 

 can cow-bird outcuckoos the cuckoo as an " at- 

 tendant on the spring," taking her pick among 

 the nurseries of featherdom, now victimizing the 

 oriole by a brief sojourn in the swinging ham- 

 mock in the elm, here stopping a moment to 

 leave her charge to the care of an indigo-bird, to- 

 morrow creeping through the grass to the se- 

 creted nest of the Maryland yellow -throat, or 

 Wilson's thrush, or chewink. And, unaccount- 

 able as it would appear, here we find the same 

 deadly token safely lodged in the dainty cobweb 

 nest of the vireo, a fragile pendent fabric hung 

 in the fork of a slender branch which in itself 

 •would barely appear sufficiently strong to sus- 

 tain the weight of a cow-bird without emptying 

 the nest. 



Indeed, the presence of this intruded egg, like 

 that of the European cuckoo in similar fragile 

 nests, has given rise to the popular belief that the 

 bird must resort to exceptional means in these in- 

 stances. Sir William Jardine, for instance, in an 

 editorial foot-note in one of Gilbert White's pages, 

 remarks : 



" It is a curious fact, and one, I believe, not 

 hitherto noticed by naturalists, that the cuckoo 



