. Bird-lore . I found a Chats nest with one egg and one Cowbirds egg. It was builtin a tangle of escaped honeysuckle vines and was not as cleverly concealed asis generally the case. I had only recently been reading of the Chats ability todetect the alien egg which is so like its own, and a desire possessed me to leavethe Cowbirds egg in the nest and see what would happen. If the Chat was askeen as I had been led to believe, she would desert the nest anyway, while if shefinished laying her set of eggs and hatched and raised the Cowbirds, something 176 Bird Lore would have Ijcen learned. Besides
. Bird-lore . I found a Chats nest with one egg and one Cowbirds egg. It was builtin a tangle of escaped honeysuckle vines and was not as cleverly concealed asis generally the case. I had only recently been reading of the Chats ability todetect the alien egg which is so like its own, and a desire possessed me to leavethe Cowbirds egg in the nest and see what would happen. If the Chat was askeen as I had been led to believe, she would desert the nest anyway, while if shefinished laying her set of eggs and hatched and raised the Cowbirds, something 176 Bird Lore would have Ijcen learned. Besides, the friends of the small birds have nevermade the Cowbird ihc outlaw he deser\es to be by removing him from the pro-tection of the Connecticut law, and I could sal\e my conscience with the thoughtthat I was strictly obeying the law in leaving the egg in the nest. The morning there was a Cowbirds egg in a Chipping Sparrows nest,about fifty feet from the Chats nest, and a second Cowbirds egg in the Chats. IWO VOUN(; COWHIRDS l\ (HATS NEST. A \()L\(, (TIAr 1^ ( ROW DKHOUT or SIGHT BV THE COWBIRDSIhdtofcraphed, just before leaving the nest, by Wilbur F. Smith nest, from which the female Chat flushed at my approach. I visited this nestevery morning. No more eggs were laid, and the Chat began incubation thesame day the second Cowbirds egg appeared in the nest. At my approach shewould slip ofi the nest and glide through the tangle like a shadow, but I alwayscould feel that she was watching me, while she herself remained unseen. After several days incubation I photographed the nest and eggs, and though1 had to disturb the surroundings somewhat, she was on her nest as usual thenext morning. All three eggs hatched, and it was the old story of crowding andclamor, greed and starving, and though the young Chat managed to exist andleave the nest, it was out of sight beneath the larger and stronger Cowbirdswhen I photographed the nest just before they left it. These Chats were c()mi)l
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Keywords: ., boo, bookcentury1800, bookdecade1890, booksubjectbirdsperiodicals
