A great, callow, overgrown Cow- 
bird, fed by a diminutive pair of 
industrious and attentive Chipping 
Sparrows, is the most palpable fraud of the summer 
season. The over-burdened foster parents have to 
stand on tip-toe to reach the open beak of the hungry 
pretender, who has turned out their own progeny 
to die helplessly beside the parental nest. How 
importunate he is ! If they fly across the field he flies 
after them, as if he were angry at the freedom they 
presumed to take, and determined by force, if neces- 
sary, to make them more assiduous and attentive. 
But they do not shirk the burden that fate and 
intentional deception have imposed on them. They 
skurry about in the edge of the grain field and along 
the roadside, picking up every insect in sight and 
returning in haste to the big, indolent impostor 
sitting on the rail with bill readily agape. 
He seems to have a phenomenal capacity for 
swallowing. No matter how frequent the visits of his 
little foster parents, he is ever ready to demand more. 
His insatiable appetite seems to puzzle and worry 
105 
