t yet appeared, and which they abandon.
Their foster children repay them, however, with the blackest
ingratitude. As soon as the little _Molothrus_ feels his body covered
with feathers and his little wings strong enough to sustain him he
quits his adopted parents without consideration. These birds show a
love of independence very rare among animals, with whom conjugal
fidelity has become proverbial; they do not unite in couples; unions
are free, and the mother hastens to deliver herself from the cares of
bringing up her young in the manner we have seen. Two other species of
_Molothrus_ have the same habit, as have the American Cuckoo and the
Golden Cuckoo of South Africa.

The habits of the _Molothrus bovariensis_, a closely allied Argentine
Cow-bird, have been carefully studied by Mr. W. H. Hudson, who has
also some interesting remarks as to the vestiges of the nesting
instinct in this interesting parasitical bird, which now is constantly
dropping eggs in all sorts of places, even on the ground, most of them
being lost. "Before and during the breeding-season the females,
sometimes accompanied by the males, are seen continually haunting and
examining the domed nests of the _Dendrocolaptidae_. This does not seem
like a mere freak of curiosity, but their persistence in their
investigations is precisely like that of birds that habitually make
choice of such breeding-places. It is surprising that they never do
actually lay in such nests, except when the side or dome has been
accidentally broken enough to admit the light into the interior.
Whenever I set boxes up in my trees, the female Cow-birds were the
first to visit them. Sometimes one will spend half a day loitering
about and inspecting a box, repeatedly climbing round and over it, and
always ending at the entrance, into which she peers curiously, and
when about to enter starting back, as if scared at the obscurity
within. But after retiring a little space she will return again and
again, as if fascinated by the comfort and security of such an abode.
It is amusing to see how pertinaciously they hang about the ovens of
the Oven-birds, apparently determined to take possession of them,
flying back after a hundred repulses, and yet not entering them even
when they have the opportunity. Sometimes one is seen following a Wren
or a Swallow to its nest beneath the eaves, and then clinging to the
wall beneath the hole into which it disappeared. That it is a
recurrence to a long