The Savannah morning news. (Savannah, Ga.) 1900-current, 1904-12-18
THE LATEST OF ALL BIRDS.
cowbird Builds No Nest and Rears
No Young.

From the Los Angeles Times.
The cowbird was born so tired that
If he could compel any other bird to
gather his food for him he would do
so, but he cannot, so he scratches
about all day among the herds of cat
tie and sheep and goes to roost at
night in great bands of hundreds of
his relatives, always selecting a bushy
tree, such as cypress, for a nights
perch. All up and down the Missis-
sippi river valley is the common sum-
mer home of this bird, for only in the
depth of winter do they retreat to the
warmer mesas of Mexico, whittier
most of the other birds have preceded
them. In the spring following such a
winter they are to the first to return.
nlllng all the new year air with their
chatter and lining the barnyard trees.
You must not think that the glossy
black and brown birds to plentiful
around Southern California barnyards
during the winter months are cow
birds, for they are not. They are call
ed grackles," and seem to be more
ike crows than blackbirds. You can
nnd their nests, big bulky affairs, in
the orange and cypress trees of almost
any OF your ranch homes. There are
many, many members to the black
bird family, the sweet voiced meadow
larks and the gorgeous, golden orioles.
as Wen as the more sober colored
plackblrds and grackles, and of all
these but one forces the Matching of
her eggs and the feeding of her young
onto another bird mother.
In England the cuckoo has this Same
hab1t, but the American cuckoo builds
her nest and sits on her eggs as nice
as any robin or dove could do.
sometimes our roadrunner so far for
gets nersef as to lay her eggs in the
nest OF a quail or a meadowlark, but
not orten, but when she does the bird
upon whom Mrs. Roadrunner tries To
impose generally breaks the strange
egg or else goes away and leaves the
nest alone. Then the field mice and
the WOOD rats have a feast, to which
sometimes the roadrunner comes her
SELF for she is very fond of eggs as
long as they are not her own.
But the cowbird never makes any
sucn poor Joo as that. She always Sc
iects the nest of some smaller bird
IN regions where warblers are plentiful
the nome of one of these little singers
is most frequently chosen-and there
as many eggs as she thinks the owner
OF the nest will submit to are laid
sometimes the warbler goes right on
lncubatlng the intruder, but now and
lnen the Two old birds get together and
dump the egg out on the ground. Nests
nave been found in which the warblers
put a mud floor over the first nest and
bulit another one on top of it, leaving
their own eggs to spoil because thew
knew no other way to rid themselves
OF the cowbird. If the cowbird comes
back by the repaired nest she will
put another egg in it, and generally
this egg is Matched and raised by the
foster pair on whom it has been forced
1t requires about ten or eleven DAYS
for the young cowbird to break the
shell, while most other birds of its
size are two or three days longer. and
thus he has a good start on the other
nestlings in point of growth. When
Matched the cowbird is larger than the
sparrow or the warbler and conse-
quently gradually crowds them into
the background. taking all the food
that should belong to them. As they
grow weaker from this, he grows
stronger, and it is not long until he
tips them out of the nest and is sole
master of the two old birds, who work
ceaselessly to satisfy his awful appe-
tite. In a very few days he gets too
large for the little nest and goes out