The Cowbirds 



is a demirep, a ne'er-do-weel, a slattern, a shirk, a harpy, a traitor, an 

 anarchist. Destitute of all natural affection, she cares neither for the 

 wrongs of others nor for the undermined pillars of her own virtue. She 

 is the unchaste mother of a race gone wrong, an enemy of bird-society, a 

 blight upon the flower of Progress. Despised and hated by her fellow 

 birds, harried and anathematized by her victims, this avian marplot 

 lives only by stealth and by the secret practice of violence. All that 

 may possibly be urged on behalf of this culprit is that she is the victim 

 of an unfortunate heredity. Such a defense is in itself an accusation. 

 The Cowbird stock is indeed polluted : of haphazard and unknown pater- 

 nity, conceived in an infamy of indifference, she was dumped at birth 

 into a strange cradle, and left to make shift as best she might, an un- 

 blessed and pitiless bastard. Nourished by uncomprehending or reluctant 

 strangers, and winning a place in their affections solely at the cost of the 

 lives of their own innocent babes, this foundling first accepts their un- 

 tiring ministrations, and then escapes, an alien ingrate, to join herself to 

 the beasts of the field. What wonder, then, that at maturity she wel- 

 comes the pirate band, joins them in their obscene revels, and perpetuates, 

 in turn, her dissolute race. Out upon her! 



Of course we are "anthropomorphizing"; but the case is really 

 as bad as that. Taken on any plane of life and stated in its lowest 

 terms, parasitism is mutiny, a breaking down of life's wholesome and 

 necessary disciplines, a surrender of life's ends. A parasite is a failure. 

 Evolution is at a standstill. Wherever parasitism succeeds, nature has 

 to begin over again. 



But even degeneracy may be picturesque, — of interest, that is, when 

 viewed dispassionately as a phenomenon instead of a moral issue. Hear, 

 then, with what tolerance you may, the story of a changeling: 



Beginning, say, in mid-August, before the bird has ever seen another 

 of its own kind, we find it closely attached to some group of horses or 

 cows, following them about slavishly, now being nosed out of the way 

 as the animals feed, or evading as by instinct the misplaced hoof. Perhaps 

 it is oftenest the foregathering of the animals which leads the birds them- 

 selves together. At any rate, the corral soon boasts a little company of 

 these dun-colored youngsters with light undervests, and, though they 

 early learn to come and go freely, the association with horses and cattle 

 is lifelong. In all probability the "Cowbird" once followed the buffalo 

 in the same fashion, and was, prior to the introduction of cattle by Euro- 

 peans in the 16th Century, the Buffalobird. 



In September the males exchange the inconspicuous livery of youth 

 for the rich iridescent black of adult plumage; and they do this on the 

 instalment plan, by chunks and blotches, looking meanwhile like rag- 



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