298 COW BUNTING. 



and the blue bird, are the only birds in whose nests I have 

 found the eggs or the young of the cowpen finch, though 

 doubtless there are some others. 



" 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 the 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 egg 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 affection, and discovered the usual concern at my approach. 

 On the succeeding 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 e£g 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 opportunity 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 affection 

 as if it had been its own offspring. 



" The next year my first discovery was in a blue bird's nest 

 built in a hollow stump. The nest contained six eggs, and 



