Various - Birds and All Nature, Vol. VI, No. 5, December 1899

THE birds had met in council that morning, and from the great chattering and chirping I judged some very serious question was up before the board.

"Something must be done," Mr. Red-eyed Vireo was saying, as I sauntered down to the orchard and seated myself beneath an apple tree, "we have stood the imposition long enough. Every year we meet and draw up resolutions, with many 'whereases' and 'wherefores,' and 'aforesaids' – resolutions with nothing resolute about them. To-day, I say, something must be done."

Mr. Wood-thrush, Mr. Towhee, Mr. Chipping Sparrow, Mr. Yellow-breasted Chat, Mr. Song Sparrow, and several Mr. Flycatchers, beside a number of other small birds, nodded their heads in unequivocal assent.

"We have enemies enough," continued Mr. Vireo, "how many only Mother Nature knows. Even in the darkness of night we are not safe from the owls, skunks, snakes, and other robbers, and in the day-time, besides our feathered foes, we have the ruthless 'collector,' and the ever-present bad boy. Enemies without are bad enough, but to have in our very midst a – a – " Mr. Vireo paused, presumably choking with indignation, but really because he had quite forgotten what he had prepared to say.

"Hear, hear!" cried the assembled birds, making a great clamor and clatter in order that the speaker might have a chance to slyly consult his notes.

"A tribe of social outcasts – tramps, in fact," continued Mr. Vireo, "whose females, disliking the cares of family life, build no homes of their own, but instead deposit their eggs in some other bird's nest that their young may be hatched and reared without any trouble to themselves. Our mates have enough to do to bring up their own families, so I say the tribe of cowbirds must be driven from this community, or else, like the rest of us, be forced to work."

"H'm! yes," sighed Mr. Towhee, "that's what we say every year, and every year the conditions remain just the same. The cowbirds are tramps by nature, and you can't change their natures, you know."

I judged, from the great chattering and chirping, that grave exceptions were taken to this remark, but quiet at length being restored, Mr. Towhee continued:

"My mate says it depends upon ourselves whether the whole tribe shall be exterminated. She, for one, does not intend to hatch out any more of Mrs. Cowbird's babies. This spring we found one of her speckled eggs in our nest, but it wasn't hatched out, I warrant you. We simply pierced the shell with our bills, picked it up by the opening, and carried it out of the nest."

A round of applause greeted these remarks, much to Mr. Towhee's gratification.

"It strikes me," said Mr. Indigo Bunting, "that the whole fault lies with our mates. From the size and different markings of Mrs. Cowbird's eggs they can always be distinguished from their own. No self-respecting bird should ever brood one; in that way we can exterminate the race."

"'Tis the mother-instinct, I presume," said Mr. Vireo, "or the kindly nature of some females, not to neglect a forlorn little egg abandoned by its parents at their very door. Ah," he broke off, pointing in a certain direction, "is not that a sad sight for an affectionate husband to see?"

On a fence near by stood two birds – a very small one, with a worried, harassed air, endeavoring upon tip-toe to drop into the mouth of the great fat baby towering above her a green caterpillar which she held in her bill.

"That is Mrs. Vireo, my mate, and her foster child," continued the speaker. "The egg of the cowbird being larger than her own, received all the warmth of her breast, so that her own little ones perished in the shell. It takes all her time and strength to feed that great hulking baby, who will accept her nursing long after he can take care of himself, then desert her to join his own tribe in the grain fields."

"Last year my mate had no better sense than to brood one of Mrs. Cowbird's eggs," said Mr. Chipping Sparrow. "It emerged from the shell first, of course, and in attending to its everlasting clamor for food she neglected her own birdlings so that all but one of them died. That one has always been a puny, weak little thing. We were greatly astonished, I assure you, at the size of our first offspring, neither of us being acquainted with the habits of Mrs. Cowbird, and disappointed that in neither feather nor feature it resembled her or me."

"I got the best of the lazy tribe, this year," chuckled Mr. Yellow Warbler. "Our nest was just completed, and my mate had deposited one egg, when in our absence one day Mrs. Cowbird sneaked in, laid one of her own beside it and then stealthily crept away. My mate said nothing, and might have brooded it with her own, but the next day the same thing, in our absence, occurred again; another female of the lazy tribe, I presume, finding our home quite to her liking."

"Two to one," said the Chat with a laugh, "that was not fair. Well, what did you do then?"

"Why we concluded to abandon the nest and build another, but on second thought gave up that plan. We simply built a floor over the lower portion of the nest, and on the upper floor, or second story, so to speak, my mate deposited four eggs, those, with the one shut in with the Cowbird's, making her full complement, you see."

"It would have been far easier, it seems to me," said Mr. Towhee, "to have thrown Mrs. Cowbird's eggs out of the nest as we did. But then you and your mate must learn by experience and you will know better what to do the next time."

"Doubtless," said Mr. Yellow-throat, a trifle stiffly, "but my mate is a very dainty bird and wouldn't for a moment think of using a cradle for her little ones that had been occupied, even for a short time, by two female tramps."

"Hm!" replied Mr. Towhee, in his turn not altogether pleased, "that accounts probably for the number of abandoned nests one meets with every year, containing a speckled egg of Mrs. Cowbird's. Too dainty, indeed!"

"Did you ever happen to see one of the homeless creatures seeking somebody else's nest in which to lay her egg?" interrupted Mr. Chipping Sparrow, scenting a quarrel in the air. "I saw one in the woods once sneaking through the undergrowth, and when Mr. and Mrs. Red-eyed Vireo had flown away for a little time, out she crept, inspected their nest, and, finding it to her taste, entered and deposited her egg. She felt sure, you see, that Mrs. Vireo had a kind heart and would hatch out the foundling with her own."

"And she did," sadly said Mr. Vireo, "she did."

"The company the tribe keeps is no better than themselves," said Mr. Wood Thrush. "During the breeding-season you will see the grackles, and red-winged blackbirds, and the cowbirds chattering and gossipping together, as they roost for the night. They are a lawless crew. No self-respecting bird will be found in such company."

"I saw a number of the cowbird tribe perching on the backs of a bunch of cattle in the pasture-land to-day," said a very young Mr. Flycather. "What do you suppose they were doing?"

"Searching for parasites," gruffly said an old bird; "that's the reason they are called cowbirds. They were once called 'buffalo birds' for the same reason."

No one spoke for the space of several minutes.

"If there are no further remarks," said Mr. Red-eyed Vireo, "the question will be put. All in favor – "

"What is the question, Mr. Chairman?" meekly asked a very young Mr. Flycatcher.

"Is it or is it not our duty to destroy every egg of Mrs. Cowbird's we find in our nests, thus forcing the tribe to build homes of their own in which to bring up their families? All in favor – "