lower parts dull yellow; bill reddish flesh colour; legs and eyes as in the male. The young birds retain the dress of the female until the early part of the succeeding spring; the plumage of the female undergoes no material change of colour.

COW BUNTING.*

[Plate XVIII.-Figs. 1, 2, & 3.]

Le Brunet, BUFF. IV, 138.-Le Pinçon de Virginie, BRISS. III, 165.-Cowpen-bird, CATESB. 1, 34.—LATH. II, 269.—Arct. Zool. 11, p. 371, No. 241.—Sturnus stercorarius, BARTRAM, p. 291.PEALE'S Museum, No. 6378, male-6379, female.†

THERE is one striking peculiarity in the works of the great Creator, which becomes more amazing the more we reflect on it; namely, that he has formed no species of animals so minute, or obscure, that are not invested with certain powers and peculiarities, both of outward conformation and internal faculties, exactly suited to their pursuits, sufficient to distinguish them from all others; and forming for them a character solely and exclusively their own. This is particularly so among the feathered race. If there be any case where these characteristic features are not evident, it is owing to our want of observation; to our little intercourse with that particular tribe; or to that contempt for inferior animals and all their habitudes which is but too

The American Cuckoo (Cuculus Carolinensis) is by many people called the Cow-bird, from the sound of its notes resembling the words cow, cow. This bird builds its own nest very artlessly in a cedar or an apple tree, and lays four greenish blue eggs, which it hatches, and rears its young with great tenderness.

† Prince Musignano quotes the following Synonymes:-Fringilla pecoris, GMEL. LATH. female and young.—Oriolus fuscus, GMEL. adult male.-Oriolus minor, GMEL. species, No. 46, LATH. adult male.--Sturnus obscurus, GMEL. adult male.-Sturnus junceti, LATH. adult male.-Troupiale de la Caroline, BUFF. Pl. Enl. 606, fig. 1, adult male. This figure is, no doubt, intended for this bird, although the bill is incorrect.-BRISSON calls it Fringilla Virginiana. VIEILLOT, Passerina pecoris.

VOL. II.-Z

general, and which bespeaks a morose, unfeeling and unreflecting mind. These peculiarities are often surprising, always instructive where understood, and (as in the subject of our present chapter) at least amusing, and worthy of being farther investigated.

The most remarkable trait in the character of this species is the unaccountable practice it has of dropping its eggs into the nests of other birds, instead of building and hatching for itself; and thus entirely abandoning its progeny to the care and mercy of strangers. More than two thousand years ago it was well known, in those countries where the bird inhabits, that the Cuckoo of Europe (Cuculus canorus) never built herself a nest, but dropped her eggs in the nests of other birds; but among the thousands of different species that spread over that and other parts of the globe, no other instance of the same uniform habit has been found to exist, until discovered in the bird now before us. Of the reality of the former there is no doubt; it is known to every schoolboy in Britain; of the truth of the latter I can myself speak with confidence, from personal observation, and from the testimony of gentlemen, unknown to each other, residing in different and distant parts of the United States. The circumstances by which I became first acquainted with this peculiar habit of the bird are as follow.

I had, in numerous instances, found in the nests of three or four particular species of birds, one egg, much larger and differently marked from those beside it; I had remarked that these odd looking eggs were all of the same colour, and marked nearly in the same manner, in whatever nest they lay; though frequently the eggs beside them were of a quite different tint; and I had also been told, in a vague way, that the Cow-bird laid in other birds' nests. At length I detected the female of this very bird in the nest of the Red-eyed Flycatcher, which nest is very small, and very singularly constructed; suspecting her purpose, I cautiously withdrew without disturbing her; and had the satisfaction to find, on my return, that the egg which she had just dropt corresponded as nearly as eggs of the same species usually

do, in its size, tint and markings to those formerly taken notice of. Since that time I have found the young Cow Bunting, in many instances, in the nests of one or other of these small birds; I have seen these last followed by the young Cow-bird calling out clamorously for food, and often engaged in feeding it; and I have now, in a cage before me, a very fine one which six months ago I took from the nest of the Maryland Yellowthroat, and from which the figures of the young bird, and male Cow-bird in the plate were taken; the figure in the act of feeding it is the female Maryland Yellow-throat, in whose nest it was found. I claim, however, no merit for a discovery not originally my own, these singular habits having long been known to people of observation resident in the country, whose information, in this case, has preceded that of all our school philosophers and closet naturalists; to whom the matter has till now been totally unknown.

About the twenty-fifth of March, or early in April, the Cowpen-bird makes his first appearance in Pennsylvania from the south, sometimes in company with the Red-winged Blackbird, more frequently in detached parties, resting early in the morning, an hour at a time, on the tops of trees near streams of water, appearing solitary, silent and fatigued. They continue to be occasionally seen, in small solitary parties, particularly along creeks and banks of rivers, so late as the middle of June; after which we see no more of them until about the beginning or middle of October, when they re-appear in much larger flocks, generally accompanied by numbers of the Red-wings; between whom and the present species there is a considerable similarity of manners, dialect, and personal resemblance. In these aerial voyages, like other experienced navigators, they take advantage of the direction of the wind; and always set out with a favourable gale. My venerable and observing friend, Mr. Bartram, writes me on the thirteenth of October, as follows." The day before "yesterday, at the height of the north-east storm, prodigious "numbers of the Cow-pen birds came by us, in several flights "of some thousands in a flock; many of them settled on trees in

"the garden to rest themselves; and then resumed their voyage "southward. There were a few of their cousins, the Red-wings, "with them. We shot three, a male and two females."

From the early period at which these birds pass in the spring, it is highly probable that their migrations extend very far north. Those which pass in the months of March and April can have no opportunity of depositing their eggs here, there being not more than one or two of our small birds which build so early. Those that pass in May and June, are frequently observed loitering singly about solitary thickets, reconnoitering, no doubt, for proper nurses, to whose care they may commit the hatching of their eggs, and the rearing of their helpless orphans. Among the birds selected for this duty are the following, all of which are figured and described in this and the preceding volume;— the Blue-bird, which builds in a hollow tree; the Chipping Sparrow, in a cedar bush; the Golden-crowned Thrush, on the ground, in the shape of an oven; the Red-eyed Flycatcher, a neat pensile nest, hung by the two upper edges on a small sapling, or drooping branch; the Yellow-bird in the fork of an alder; the Maryland Yellow-throat on the ground at the roots of briar bushes; the White-eyed Flycatcher, a pensile nest on the bending of a smilax vine; and the small Blue Gray Flycatcher, also a pensile nest, fastened to the slender twigs of a tree, sometimes at the height of fifty or sixty feet from the ground. The three last mentioned nurses are represented on the same plate with the bird now under consideration. There are, no doubt, others to whom the same charge is committed; but all these I have myself met with acting in that capacity.

Among these the Yellow-throat, and the Red-eyed Flycatcher, appear to be particular favourites; and the kindness and affectionate attention which these two little birds seem to pay to their nurslings, fully justify the partiality of the parents.

It is well known to those who have paid attention to the manners of birds, that after their nest is fully finished, a day or two generally elapses before the female begins to lay. This delay is in most cases necessary to give firmness to the yet damp ma