STEALING A HOME. 139 



Having put out her babies to be brought up by 

 strangers, she seems to prefer the company of cattle 

 to that of her family. The cow blackbird lays its 

 (' eggs in the nests of all kinds of smaller birds, and her 

 eggs hatch a day or two before those that rightly be- 

 long in the nest. So, when the little birds are after- 

 ward born in the nest, they find themselves crowded 

 by the larger and stronger strangers, who, on account 

 of their size and strength, come in for a lion's share 

 of all the food provided by the parent birds. Thus 

 the nest-builders rear the strangers, while their own 

 young ones starve. It is really a pitiful sight to see a 

 couple of little greenlets anxiously searching from 

 daybreak till evening for food to fill the crop of one 

 or more young cow blackbirds much larger than the 

 greenlets themselves. The summer yellowbirds, 

 though confiding little creatures, are not so readily 

 imposed upon ; they seem to know their small, green- 

 ish, prettily marked eggs from the great, dark ones 

 the lazy cow blackbirds have smuggled into their 

 cozy nest. The little couple cling to the spot chosen 

 for their home and will not leave it, neither will they 

 consent to hatch the strange eggs. What then is to 

 be done ? The intruders are too large and heavy to be 

 thrown out. The little birds do not hesitate long. 

 Unmindful of the new labor imposed upon them, they 

 set to work and build a new nest upon the old one — a 

 second story to their house — in which they now lay 

 their own eggs. Sometimes three or four nests have 

 been found all built one upon another by these birds, to 

 escape hatching the strange eggs imposed upon them. 



