THE SONG SPARROW 
By T. GILBERT PEARSON 
The National Association of Audubon Societies 
Educational Leaflet No. 31 
One July morning, while walking through a grove on the shores of 
Lake Champlain, my attention was arrested by the loud and repeated 
cries of a bird evidently begging for food. A hundred feet away I 
found the distressed creature standing on a flat rock, and repeatedly 
voicing his complaint with scarcely a pause. It was a dark, brownish 
bird, and its color and form indicated that it belonged to the blackbird 
family. For perhaps three minutes I watched it, and then suddenly a 
little bird darted through the bushes, in appearance totally unlike the 
one before me. It went straight to the rock, and, 
alighting, proceeded at once to feed the big, hungry ^Cowbin! 
baby. I had discovered a young Cowbird being fed 
by a Song Sparrow. While the occurrence was not particularly unusual, 
such a scene, nevertheless, is likely to attract the close attention of an 
observer, so I stopped for a time to watch the scene. It always seems 
so odd to see a dainty little sparrow ministering to the wants of one of 
these parasites of the bird-world. 
A few weeks before, while the Song Sparrow was away from its 
nest, a roving Cowbird had slipped in and deposited her egg with those 
of the rightful owner of the nest. Then, unnatural mother that she 
was, she went her way and abandoned her treasure to the care of the 
Song Sparrow, which, while sitting on her own eggs also brooded 
tenderly over that of the Cowbird, and, in due time, brought forth 
the young one into the world. 
Afterward, from time to time, I watched as best I could the move- 
ments of this little sparrow-mother. Although she was seen frequently 
for several days feeding the great Cowbird’s youngling that had been 
foisted on her, not once was she detected feeding a baby of her own. 
What had become of the young Song Sparrows, which must have been 
hatched in the nest at the same time when the young 
Cowbird appeared? No one knew; but it is quite Intruder" 
probable that they were crowded out of the nest by 
their great, unwelcome bed-fellow, long before they were able to fly. 
So, down on the ground under the nest, they doubtless lay in baby 
helplessness, in the cold and the rain, while hunger gnawed at their lives, 
and death slowly drew its veil across their little eyes. 
A week later another Song Sparrow was found feeding one of her 
own young, and also two Cowbirds. All over those regions of North 
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