180 
OMNIVOROUS BIRDS. 
birds to migrate, as the seasons change and as their food 
begins to fail, have only a periodical influence ; and for a 
while they remain domestic, and pass a portion of their 
time in the cares and enjoyments of the conjugal state. 
But with our bird, like the European Cuckoo, this season 
never arrives ; the flocks live together without ever pair- 
ing. A general concubinage prevails among them, 
scarcely exciting any jealousy, and unaccompanied by 
any durable affection. From the commencement of their 
race, they have been bred as foundlings, in the nests of 
other birds, and fed by foster-parents, under the perpet- 
ual influence of delusion and deception, and by the sac- 
rifice of the concurrent progeny of the nursing birds ! 
Amongst all the feathered tribes hitherto known, this and 
the European Cuckoo, with a few other species indigenous 
to the old continent, are the only kinds who never make 
a nest or hatch their young. That this character is not 
a vice of habit, but a perpetual instinct of nature, appears 
from various circumstances, and from none more evidently 
than from this, that the . eggs of the Cow Troopial are 
always earlier hatched than those of the foster-parent, a 
singular and critical provision, on which perhaps the 
existence of the species depends. For did the natural 
brood of the deceived parent come first into existence, 
the strange egg, on which they sat, would generally be 
destroyed. 
The number of nurses selected by this vagrant is 
somewhat considerable. The greatest favorite appears to 
be the Red-eyed Fly-catcher , the White-eyed species, 
and the Maryland Yellow-throat ; but the Blue-bird , In- 
digo-bird , Chipping- Spar row, Song-Sparrow , Blue-eyed 
Yelloiv Warbler, Blue-grey Fly-catcher, Golden-crown- 
ed and Wilson’s Thrush, are also at times enlisted 
in the number of foster parents for the black and 
