purple complete. The female is
the color of the Song-Sparrow, a little larger, with heavier beak, and
tail much more forked.

In a little opening quite free from brush and trees I step down to bathe
my hands in the brook, when a small, light slate-colored bird flutters
out of the bank, not three feet from my head, as I stoop down, and, as
if severely lamed or injured, flutters through the grass and into the
nearest bush. As I do not follow, but remain near the nest, she _chips_
sharply, which brings the male, and I see it is the Speckled Canada
Warbler. I find no authority in the books for this bird to build upon
the ground, yet here is the nest, made chiefly of dry grass, set in a
slight excavation in the bank, not two feet from the water, and looking
a little perilous to anything but ducklings or sandpipers. There are two
young birds and one little specked egg, just pipped. But how is this?
what mystery is here? One nestling is much larger than the other,
monopolizes most of the nest, and lifts its open mouth far above that of
its companion, though obviously both are of the same age, not more than
a day old. Ah! I see;--the old trick of the Cow-Bunting, with a stinging
human significance. Taking the interloper by the nape of the neck, I
deliberately drop it into the water, but not without a pang, as I see
its naked form, convulsed with chills, float down stream. Cruel! So is
Nature cruel. I take one life to save two. In less than two days this
pot-bellied intruder would have caused the death of the two rightful
occupants of the nest; so I step in and divert things into their proper
channel again.

It is a singular freak of Nature, this instinct which prompts one bird
to lay its eggs in the nests of others, and thus shirk the
responsibility of rearing its own young. The Cow-Buntings always resort
to this cunning trick; and when one reflects upon their numbers it is
evident that these little tragedies are quite frequent. In Europe the
parallel case is that of the Cuckoo, and occasionally our own Cuckoo
imposes upon a Robin or a Thrush in the same manner. The Cow-Bunting
seems to have no conscience about the matter, and, so far as I have
observed, invariably selects the nest of a bird smaller than itself. Its
egg is usually the first to hatch; its young overreaches all the rest
when food is brought; it grows with great rapidity, spreads and fills
the nest, and the starved and crowded occupants soon perish, when the
par