Here we have an avian example of the ethics which the present human generation is trying to imitate.
COWBIRDS are polygamous, polyandrous and promiscuous: no homes, no cares, few troubles — a devil-may-care existence but scarcely one which tends toward advance, for without self-control the grade is downward. Forbush says courtship is a happy-go-lucky affair with results of the union deposited in another bird's nest, instead of on a doorstep!
This foisting is usually done on smaller birds where the Cowbird egg hatches first and often crowds the rightful youngsters out of their home to death by a fall or starvation. Providence may mark the Sparrow's fall but seems uninterested in a Vireo's or Warbler's demise via the Cowbird plague.
EGGS: white, spotted with browns over entire surface and of unknown number. Deposited usually singly but sometimes up to five in nests of smaller birds.
Temperate North America from about 56 degrees latitude in interior and 50 degrees in east, southward.
A 30-foot tree distributed from Delaware to Florida, west to Arkansas and Gulf States.