My Studio Neighbors | Page 6

is a beginning in the right

direction.
[Illustration]
Yes, it would appear that our American cuckoo is endeavoring to make
amends for the sins of its ancestors; but, what is less to its credit, it has
apparently found a scapegoat, to which it would ever appear anxious to
call our attention, as it stammers forth, in accents of warning, "c, c, cow,
cow, cow! cowow, cowow!" It never gets any further than this; but
doubtless in due process of vocal evolution we shall yet hear the
"bunting," or "black-bird," which is evidently what he is trying to say.
Owing to the onomatopoetic quality of the "kow, kow, kow!" of the
bird, it is known in some sections as the "kow-bird," and is thus
confounded with the real cow-bird, and gets the credit of her mischief,
even as in other parts of the country, under the correct name of
"cuckoo," it bears the odium of its foreign relative.
For though we have no disreputable cuckoo, ornithologically speaking,
let us not congratulate ourselves too hastily. We have his counterpart in
a black sheep of featherdom which vies with his European rival in
deeds of cunning and cruelty, and which has not even a song to
recommend him--no vocal accomplishment which by the greatest of
license could prompt a poet to exclaim,
"I hear thee and rejoice,"
without having his sanity called in question.
The cow-blackbird, it is true, executes a certain guttural performance
with its throat--though apparently emanating from a gastric
source--which some ornithologists dignify by the name of "song." But
it is safe to affirm that with this vocal resource alone to recommend
him he or his kind would scarcely have been known to fame. The bird
has yet another lay, however, which has made it notorious. Where is the
nest of song-sparrow, or Maryland yellow-throat, or yellow warbler, or
chippy, that is safe from the curse of the cow-bird's blighting visit?

And yet how few of us have ever seen the bird to recognize it, unless
perchance in the occasional flock clustering about the noses and feet of
browsing kine and sheep, or perhaps perched upon their backs, the
glossy black plumage of the males glistening with iridescent sheen in
the sunshine.
"Haow them blackbirds doos love the smell o' thet caow's breath!" said
an old dame to me once in my boyhood. "I don't blame um: I like it
myself." Whether it was this same authority who was responsible for
my own similar early impression I do not know, but I do recall the
surprise at my ultimate discovery that it was alone the quest of insects
that attracted the birds.
[Illustration]
Upon the first arrival of the bird in the spring an attentive ear might
detect its discordant voice, or the chuckling note of his mischievous
spouse and accomplice, in the great bird medley; but later her crafty
instinct would seem to warn her that silence is more to her interest in
the pursuit of her wily mission. In June, when so many an ecstatic
love-song among the birds has modulated from accents of ardent love
to those of glad fruition, when the sonnet to his "mistress's eyebrow" is
shortly to give place to the lullaby, then, like the "worm i' the bud," the
cow-bird begins her parasitical career. How many thousands are the
bird homes which are blasted in her "annual visit?"
Stealthily and silently she pries among the thickets, following up the
trail of warbler, sparrow, or thrush like a sleuth-hound. Yonder a tiny
yellow-bird with a jet-black cheek flits hither with a wisp of dry grass
in her beak, and disappears in the branches of a small tree close to my
studio door. Like the shadow of fate the cow-bird suddenly appears,
and has doubtless soon ferreted out her cradle.
In a certain grassy bank not far from where I am writing, at the foot of
an unsuspecting fern, a song-sparrow has built her nest. It lies in a
hollow among the dried leaves and grass, and is so artfully merged with
its immediate surroundings that even though you know its precise
location it still eludes you. Only yesterday the last finishing-touches

were made upon the nest, and this morning, as I might have anticipated
from the excess of lisp and twitter of the mother bird, I find the first
pretty brown-spotted egg.
Surely our cow-bird has missed this secret haunt on her rounds. Be not
deceived! Within a half-hour after this egg was laid the sparrow and its
mate, returning from a brief absence to view their prize, discover two
eggs where they had been responsible for but one. The prowling foe
had already discovered their secret; for she, too, is "an attendant on the
spring," and had been simply biding her time. The parent birds once