Cowhird 
139 
a dozen of them on a skewer may be bought, 
plucked and ready for the oven, for fifty cents 
or less. Isn’t this a tragic fate to overtake 
our joyous songsters? Birds that have the mis- 
fortune to like anything planted by man, pay 
a terribly heavy penalty. 
Such bobolinks as escape death, leave this 
country by way of Florida and continue their 
four thousand mile journey to southern Brazil, 
where they spend the winter; yet, nothing 
daunted by the tragedies in the rice fields, 
they dare return to us by the same route in 
May. By this time the males have made 
another complete change of feather to go 
a-courting. Most birds are content to moult 
once a year, just after nursery duties have ended ; 
some, it is true, put on a partially new suit in 
the following spring, retaining only their old 
wing and tail feathers; but a very few, the 
bobolink, goldfinch, and scarlet tanager among 
them, undergo as complete a change as Harle- 
quin. 
COWBIRD 
This contemptible bird every child should 
know if for no better reason than to despise it. 
You will see it alone or in small flocks walking 
about the pastures after the cattle; or, in the 
