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Citizen Bird - Scenes from Bird-Life in Plain English for Beginners by Mabel Osgood Wright;Elliott Coues
page 260 of 424 (61%)
an egg, too, but has no home, because she is too lazy and shiftless to
build one. She sees the Sparrow's nest and thinks, 'Ah, hah! that bird
is smaller than I am, and cannot push my egg out; I will leave it
there!' This she does very quickly, and slips away again.

[Illustration: Cowbird]

"When the Sparrow comes home she may wonder at the strange egg, and
perhaps be able to push it out of the nest; but more likely she takes no
notice of it, as it is so much like her own, and lets it stay. If she
does this, that egg is only the beginning of trouble. It is larger than
her own, so it gets more warmth and hatches more quickly. Then the young
Cowbird grows so fast that it squeezes the little Sparrows dreadfully,
sometimes quite out of the nest, and eats so much that they are half or
wholly starved. The poor Sparrow and her mate must sometimes think what
a big child it is; but they feed it kindly until it can fly--sometimes
even after it leaves the nest. Then it goes back to join the flock its
tramp parents belong to, without so much as saying 'thank you' to its
foster parents.

"A Cowbird lays only one egg in each nest, but sometimes several visit
the same nest in succession; and then the poor Sparrow has a hard time,
indeed.

"The Yellow Warbler is one of the clever birds who will not always be
imposed upon--you remember the two-storied nest we found; and some of
the larger birds push out the strange egg. But Cowbirds are very crafty,
and usually select their victims from among the small, feeble, and
helpless."

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