CATALOGUE OF CANADIAN BIRDS. 425 



would be a second laying. After the middle of August none are 

 seen. (Rev. C. J. Young.) Breeds commonly in Manitoba where I 

 have found several nests containing five eggs each. {W. Raine.) 



CC. MOLOTHRUS Swainson. 1831. 

 495. Cowbird. 



Molothrus ater (Bodd.) Gray. 1870. 



Apparently not noticed in Nova Scotia. 



A rare summer resident in New Brunswick. (Chamberlain.) 

 Taken at Beauport; not a common summer resident in Quebec. 

 (Dionne.) A common summer resident around Montreal; breeds in 

 many small bird's nests; I have observed a nest of the yellow 

 warbler rebuilt on top of the first nest which contained the eggs of 

 a cowbird. (Wintle.) A common summer resident at Ottawa, Ont., 

 laying in many small bird's nests. (Ottawa Naturalist, Vol. V.) 

 Very abundant in Ontario, arriving in April and staying until 

 October. It congregates in small flocks through the summer. I 

 have seen its eggs in May, June and July; in the latter month usually 

 in the nest of the song sparrow, or wood pewee. I have seen this 

 bird in the winter in company with English sparrows. In December, 

 1889, I saw two at Lansdowne, Ont.; one of these remained with a 

 flock of sparrows all the winter. This was the same winter I ob- 

 served red -headed wood-peckers, the weather being unusually mild, 

 and there being only two weeks of sleighing along the St. Lawrence 

 all that winter. (Rev. C. J. Young.) Abundant summer resident 

 at Toronto, Ont. I first saw this bird at Emsdale, Muskoka district, 

 May 26th, 1899; about a dozen of both sexes; Mr. Kay gives 1889 

 as the year of their first appearance at Gravenhurst ; Mr. Tavemer 

 reported them as common at Beaumaris on April 22nd, 1898. 

 (/. H. Fleming.) Common all over western Ontario. (W. E. 

 Saunders.) One seen at Missinabi, Ont., June, 1904. (Spread- 

 borough.) I have nowliere found the cowbird more abundant than 

 it is in summer throughout the region surveyed by the commission. 

 Even were the birds not seen ample evidence of their presence in 

 numbers would be found in the alien eggs with which a majority of 

 the smaller birds of the country were pestered. Scarcely any 

 species, from the least flycatcher and the clay-coloured bunting up 



