A PINCH OF SALT 
try must see one or more young cowbirds being fed 
by their foster-parents every season, yet no com- 
petent observer has ever reported any care of the 
young bird by its real parent. If this were true, it 
would make the cowbird only half parasitical — an 
unheard-of phenomenon. 
The same writer tells this incident about a grouse 
that had a nest near his cabin. One morning he 
heard a strange cry in the direction of the nest, and 
taking the path that led to it, he met the grouse 
running toward him with one wing pressed close to 
her side, and fighting off two robber crows with the 
other. Under the closed wing the grouse was carry- 
ing an egg, which she had managed to save from the 
ruin of her nest. The bird was coming to the hermit 
for succor. Now, am I skeptical about such a story, 
put down in apparent good faith in a book of natural 
history as a real occurrence, because I have never 
seen the like? No; I am skeptical because the in- 
cident is so contrary to all that we know about 
grouse and all other wild birds. Our belief in nearly 
all matters takes the line of least resistance, and it is 
easier for me to believe that the writer deceived 
himself, than that such a thing ever happened. In 
the first place, a grouse could not pick up an egg 
with her wing when crows were trying to rob her, 
and, in the second place, she would not think far 
enough to do it if she had the power. What was she 
going to do with the egg? Bring it to the hermit for 
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