COW BUNTING 189 
been known to people of observation resident in the country, whose 
information, in this case, has preceded that of all our school philoso- 
phers and closet naturalists, to whom the matter has, till now, been 
totally unknown. ; 
About the 25th of March, or early in April, the Cow-Pen Bird makes 
his first appearance in Pennsylvania from the south, sometimes in 
company with the Red-winged Blackbird, more frequently in detached 
parties, resting early in the morning, an hour at a time, on the tops of 
trees near streams- of water, appearing solitary, silent, and fatigued, 
They continue to be occasionally seen, in small, solitary parties, par- 
ticularly along creeks and banks of rivers, so late as the middle of 
June ; after which, we see no more of them until about the beginning 
or middle of October, when they reappear in much larger flocks, gen- 
erally accompanied by numbers of the Redwings; between whom 
and the present species there is a considerable similarity of manners, 
dialect, and personal resemblance. In these aerial voyages, like other 
experienced navigators, they take advantage of the direction of the 
wind, and always set out with a favorable gale. My venerable and 
observing friend, Mr. Bartram, writes me, on the 13th of October, as 
follows: —‘“ The day before yesterday, at the height of the north-east 
storm, prodigious numbers of the Cow-Pen Birds came by us, in several 
flights of some thousands in a flock ; many of them settled on trees in 
the garden to rest themselves, and then resumed their voyage south- 
wards. There were a few of their cousins, the Redwings, with them. 
We shot three, a male and two females.” 
From the early period at which these birds-pass in the spring, it is 
highly probable that their migrations extend very far north. Those 
which pass in the months of March and April can have no opportunity 
of depositing their eggs here, there being not more than one or two of 
our small birds which build so early. Those that pass in May and 
June are frequently observed loitering singly about solitary thickets, 
reconnoitring, no doubt, for proper nurses, to whose care they may 
commit the hatching of their eggs, and the rearing of their helpless 
orphans. Among the birds selected for this duty are the following, 
all of which are figured and described in this volume :— The Blue- 
Bird, which builds in a hollow tree ; the Chipping Sparrow, in a cedar 
bush; the Golden-crowned Thrush, on the ground, in the shape of an 
oven; the Red-eyed Flycatcher, a neat, pensile nest, hung by the two 
upper edges on a small sapling, or drooping branch; the Yellow-Bird, 
in the fork of an alder; the Maryland Yellow-Throat, on the ground, 
at the roots. of brier bushes; the White-eyed Flycatcher, a pensile 
nest on the bending of a smilax vine; and the small Blue-gray Fly- 
catcher, also a pensile nest, fastened to the slender twigs of a tree, 
sometimes at the height of fifty or sixty feet from the gsound. The 
three last-mentioned nurses are represented on the same plate. with 
the bird now under consideration. There are, no doubt, others to 
whom the same charge is committed; but all these I have myself met 
with acting in that capacity. 
Among these, the Yellow-Throat and the Red-eyed Flycatcher ap- 
pear to be particular favorites; and the kindness and affectionate at- 
tention which these two little birds seem to pay to their nurslings, 
fully justify the partiality of the parents, 
