open mouth far above that of its companion, though obviously both are
of the same age, not more than a day old. Ah! I see; the old trick of
the cow bunting, with a stinging human significance. Taking the
interloper by the nape of the neck, I deliberately drop it into the
water, but not without a pang, as I see its naked form, convulsed with
chills, float downstream. Cruel? So is Nature cruel. I take one life
to save two. In less than two days this pot-bellied intruder would
have caused the death of the two rightful occupants of the nest; so I
step in and turn things into their proper channel again.

It is a similar freak of nature, this instinct which prompts one bird
to lay its eggs in the nests of others, and thus shirk the
responsibility of rearing its own young. The cow buntings always
resort to this cunning trick; and when one reflects upon their
numbers, it is evident that these little tragedies are quite frequent.
In Europe the parallel case is that of the cuckoo, and occasionally
our own cuckoo imposes upon a robin or a thrush in the same manner.
The cow bunting seems to have no conscience about the matter, and, so
far as I have observed, invariable selects the nest of a bird smaller
than itself. Its egg is usually the first to hatch; its young
overreaches all the rest when food is brought; it grow with great
rapidity, spreads and fills the nest, and the starved and crowded
occupants soon perish, when the parent bird removes their dead bodies,
giving its whole energy and care to the foster-child.

The warblers and smaller flycatchers are generally the sufferers,
though I sometimes see the slate-colored snowbird unconsciously duped
in like manner; and the other day, in a tall tree in the woods, I
discovered the black-throated green-backed warbler devoting itself to
this dusky, over-grown foundling. An old farmer to whom I pointed out