COW BUNTING. 195 
it is not less remarkable that they are all smaller thar the intruder; 
the Blue-Bird is the only one nearly as large. This is a good-natured, 
_ mild creature, although it makes.a vigorous defence when assaulted. 
The Yellow-Throat, the Sparrow, the Goldfinch, the Indigo Bird, and 
the Blue-Bird, are the only birds in whose nests [ have found the eggs 
_ or the young of the Cow-Pen Firich, though, doubtless, there are some 
others. ai : 
«“ What becomes of the eggs or young of the proprietor? This is 
the most interesting question that appertains to this subject. There 
must be some special law of nature which determines that the young 
of the proprietors are never to be found tenants in common with the 
young Cow Bird. I shall offer the result of my own experience on 
this point, and leave it to you and others better versed in the mysteries 
of nature than I am, to draw your own conclusions. Whatever theory 
may be adopted, the facts must remain the same. Having discovered 
a Sparrow’s nest with five eggs, four and one, and the Sparrow sitting, 
I watched the nest daily. The egg of the Cow Bird occupied tbe 
centre, and those of the Sparrow were pushed a little up the sides of 
the nest. Five days after the discovery, I perceived the shell of the 
Finch’s ege broken, and the. next, the bird was hatched. The Sparrow 
.returned, while I was near the nest, with her mouth full of food, with 
which she fed the young Cow Bird, with every possible mark of affec- 
tion, and discovered the usual concern at my approach. On the suc- 
ceeding day, only two of the Sparrow’s eggs remained, and the next 
day there were none. I sought in vain for them on the ground, and 
in every direction. ; 
“Having found the eggs of the Cow Bird in the nest of a Yellow- 
Throat, I repeated my observations. The process of incubation had 
commenced, and on the seventh day from the discovery, I found a 
young Cow Bird that had been hatched during my absence of twenty- 
four hours, all the eggs of the proprietor remaining. I had not an op- 
portunity of visiting the nest for-three days, and, on my return, there 
was only one egg remaining, and that rotten. The Yellow-Throat 
attended the young interloper with the same apparent care and affec- 
tion as if it had been its own offspring. 
“The next year, my first discovery was in a Blue-Bird’s nest built 
ina hollow stump. The nest contained six eggs, and the process of 
incubation was going on. Three or four days after my first visit, I 
found a young Cow Bird, and three eggs remaining. I took the eggs 
out; two contained young birds, apparently come to their full time. 
and the other was rotten. I found one of the other eggs on the 
ground at the foot of the stump, differing in no respect from those in 
the nest, no signs of life being discoverable in either. : 
. Soon after this, J found a Goldfinch’s nest, with one egg of each 
only, and I attended it carefully till the usual complement of the 
owner were laid. Being obliged to leave home, I could not ascertain 
precisely when the process of incubation commenced; but, from my 
reckoning, I think the egg of the Cow Bird must have been hatched 
in nine or ten days from the comriencement of incubation. On my 
return, I found the young Cow Bird occupying nearly the whole nest, 
and the foster-mother as attentive to it as she could have been to her 
own. I ought to acknowledge here, that in none of these instances could 
