BIRDS OP THE WEST 51 



But let me tell you the bad things about him. True, we 

 should never speak ill of anybody, but I'll tell just you, for I 

 know that you will never mention it. He is a very lazy bird. 

 He and his wife never build a house. When nesting time comes 

 lady bunting goes about until she finds a suitable nest be- 

 longing to another bird, and she lays her eggs in it; 

 the next egg she will very likely lay in another nest. In 

 that way she imposes upon the red-wing blackbird, the yellow 

 warbler, the vireo, the lark bunting, the chewink and the spar- 

 row. So you see she does not always seek the nest of a smaller 

 bird as many people think, though she generally does that very 

 thing. The reason for choosing a smaller bird's nest is that her 

 baby would crowd the smaller babies out if there were not room 

 in the nest for all. She seems to me to use even a better method. 

 She is quite sure to get her eggs into the nest fairly early and 

 her eggs hatch sooner than those of the larger birds and her 

 babies mature faster and in that way are quite able to hold their 

 own. The eggs of some birds you know, will hatch in a week 

 while others require as long as three weeks. 



She has another method of making sure that her young will 

 get an even start and that is to kick the other bird's egg out of 

 the nest. 



They say that the reason the cowbird never builds a nest 

 is that she lays her eggs so many days apart that the first will 

 spoil by the time the last one is laid. You may believe that 

 theory if j^ou wish to ; I think that the tendency to get lazy is as 

 strong among birds as among men and that the cow bird, a mem- 

 ber of our smartest bird family has found this labor-saving 

 method, for being fairly lazy she probably built a poor nest that 

 was easily blown to pieces ; then when she wanted to lay she found 

 herself with no nest of her own, so made use of the nest of an- 

 other. 



In the fall when the blackbirds flock, the cow birds join them 

 but they take little part in the splendid choruses that come from 

 the tree top that holds a thousand blackbirds, for they have only 

 a little far-away note and I fear a real song would be too hard 

 work for them. 



