The Buffalo Bird 
New York, Oct. io .—Editor Forest and Stream: 
Not long ago, while in the country, 1 was 
interested in watching three or four cows in 
a pasture. About each cow there seemed to 
be from 30 to 60 blackbirds, most or all of which 
were the cow bunting of the books, but what in 
old times on the plains we used to call “buffalo 
bird.” This little bird was a constant and 
noticeable associate of the herds of buffalo, cattle 
and horses which roamed the prairie, and may, 
for all I know, still be abundant in the cattle 
range. Most old hunters will recall it, and many, 
I should suppose, would have interesting ob¬ 
servations to report on it. 
I have a very clear recollection that a number 
of years ago you published some interesting ob- 
, servations about it, and I wonder whether you 
! are willing to reprint these, if you know where 
they are, in order that I, with others, may read 
them again. Old Reader. 
[In the autumn of the year 1900 we printed 
two communications on this subject; from the 
first, which appeared in September, we quote the 
following paragraphs: 
“Old travelers over the plains in buffalo davs 
who were at all observant must have noticed that, 
almost every bunch of buffalo, and even every 
individual buffalo, was likely to he accompanied 
! by a considerable number of cowbirds, which 
kept close to them all the time. A good portion 
of the birds’ time was spent walking about on 
the ground under, or close about the great ani • 
mal, and my impression always was that the 
birds were feeding on insects attracted by the 
buffalo, though precisely what these insects were 
I could never make out. The birds never seemed 
to be catching flies or flying insects, but either 
fed from the ground or occasionally picked at 
the skin of the buffalo’s back. Of course it may 
have been that the movements of the buffalo’s 
hoofs dislodged certain insects from their hid¬ 
ing places on the ground, or that the droppings 
of the animals attracted insects which the birds 
liked. 
“It is readily conceivable that at the present 
day in sections of the country where feeding is 
practiced—that is to say, where cattle are kept 
up and fattened by being fed corn—the cowbird 
may in part feed on such portions of grain as 
pass undigested through the animal’s alimentary 
tract, but apparently no such source of food sup¬ 
ply could have been had from the buffalo when 
he roamed the plains thirty years ago. 
“Concerning the main fact of association with 
the buffalo there is no doubt, and the name ‘buf¬ 
falo bird’ of course comes from this association. 
It was common to see a bird alight on the horn, 
or on the thick wig of the buffalo’s head, but the 
more common resting place was on the ridge of 
the back, where sometimes a dozen or fifteen 
birds might be seen perched like chickens on a 
roost, often with their heads all pointing in one 
direction. The matted hair of the top of the 
head was often spotted with white, and it was 
the rule that buffalo killed in summer had on 
each side of the backbone from shoulders to 
rump a line of chalky white marked by the drop¬ 
pings of the birds. 
“Often while a man was butchering a buffalo 
these little birds would make their appearance 
and alight on the ground close to him, or per¬ 
haps on his horse’s mane or hips. They were 
entirely familiar and tame, and barely moved out 
of the way, for large living creatures seemed to 
have no terrors for them.” 
This letter brought to its writer several com¬ 
munications, one of them from J. W. Schultz, of 
Montana, who said: 
“The cowbird or buffalo bird, as the old- 
timers used to call it, is one of the few wild crea¬ 
tures that is holding its own. Indeed, it seems 
to be increasing year by year. I cannot remem¬ 
ber that there were such large flocks of them in 
the old times as we see in recent years, and this 
is also the opinion of friends with whom I have 
talked upon the subject. 
“I cannot learn that the buffalo bird ever asso¬ 
ciated with antelope, but it is reasonable to sujj- 
pose that they did. The two animals [i. e., buf¬ 
falo and antelope] used to range and graze to¬ 
gether, and no doubt the birds swarmed about 
both. 
“Mr. Jos. Kipp says he has seen them perch on 
the backs of elk among the bars of the Mis¬ 
souri, just as they did upon the buffalo. 
“All the Indians and old-timers agree that the 
bird fed upon grasshoppers and other insects 
which the buffalo scared up and put to flight as h 
grazed along on the plains. Yet how many, 
many times we have seen these active little crea¬ 
tures come wheeling and dipping through the 
air, and alighting on the backs of the buffalo of 
a herd, only to resume their erratic flight in a 
moment or two. Often they will thus wheel 
about and alight on the beasts five or six times 
in succession without ever once taking to the 
ground, from which it seems reasonable to infer 
that they either have an attachment for the large 
ruminants and horses, or that they prefer a lofty 
perch, from which they see the approach of their 
enemies, the hawks, in preference to resting in 
the grass.” 
“Another letter was from Capt. L. H. North, 
who said : 
“I used to think that when they stayed on the 
ground, near the buffalo, it was because the wind 
was blowing and the flies were staying close to 
the buffalo’s hoofs, and that when they were on 
their backs and were pecking or pulling at the 
skin they were trying to get the grub-worms 
that are found in the backs of buffalo and 
cattle. 
“It is certainly interesting to have positive 
testimony that the buffalo birds associated with 
the elk as they did with the buffalo, but it would 
seem that Capt. North has given the truer ex¬ 
planation of the bird’s presence on the ground, 
and it is altogether likely that much of the work 
that they were seen to do on the great animals’ 
backs was trying to rid them of the grubs so 
constantly found in the backs of the buffalo and 
the cattle. It was not uncommon to find buffalo 
hides, taken off at certain seasons, perforated by 
these grubs, so that when the hides were dressed 
for any purpose they were seen to contain 
numerous holes. The same thing may be seen 
in the hides of cattle to-day. If the cowbirds 
succeed in relieving the buffalo and cattle of the 
grubs which trouble them, they perform the same 
service that the so-called ‘rhinoceros bird’ 
( Buphaga ) does for certain large animals in 
Africa.” 
We believe that the buffalo birds are as plenty 
now as formerly. The parasitic habits of the 
species are of course well known. —Editor.] 
Capt. Parkinson’s Manatee. 
Norfolk, Va., Sept. 29. —Editor Forest and 
Stream: I feel sure that notice of the follow¬ 
ing rare incidents will be of interest, not only 
to your readers who are sportsmen, but to those 
who feel the interest of a naturalist and whose 
set ideas in regard to the habitat or haunts of 
certain fishes and animals will lie shocked at 
the relation of the following: 
Ocean View, about eight miles from Norfolk, 
is one of the many summer resorts of that city. 
Among its many attractions is that of hauling 
the seine, and while occasionally very rare fish 
are caught, yet it happened to be the luck of 
Captain Jim Parkinson, the owner of a “fishery” 
in front of the Baycroft Club, one day last week, 
to draw ashore a manatee. Such a thing was 
never known before in this vicinity, and no one 
knew what it was, save that it was an enormous 
mammal that moaned somewhat like a cow and 
was perfectly harmless. It was between twelve 
and fifteen feet long and estimated to weigh 
between fifteen hundred and two thousand 
pounds and required the seine crew, augmented 
by everyone in sight and hail, possibly one hun - 
dred persons in all, with the assistance of ropes 
to manage it while they disentangled it from the 
seine to secure it. Captain Parkinson had no 
idea what it was until he got a book on natural 
history from the Baycroft Club’s library, and 
then he was able to identify his captive. He 
thought that he had a find that the Aquarium 
in New York, or possibly the Washington 
Zoological Gardens, would pay high for, so with 
his crew and their assistants they managed to get 
the sea-cow or rather sea-bull—for the captive was 
a male—into his largest seine boat, from which 
he had removed such seats and other fixtures as 
would interfere with its being turned into a cage. 
He then nailed the boards across the boat and 
set his crew to work to gather such sea grass 
and cabbage as he thought the beast would eat, 
and towed the boat out from shore, partly filled 
it with water and anchored it for the night, feel¬ 
ing sure that he could make a comfortable sum 
of money by first exhibiting the monster, and a 
still further sum from its sale. 
Visions of a comfortable bank account made 
his sleep that night pleasant, and his happy con¬ 
victions that a small fortune was his were only 
dispelled next morning when on viewing the boat 
he observed that it rode lighter than it ought to 
