The books on ornithology tell us that the cowbird (Molothrus ater) is a common summer resident of New England, without regard to locality. However true this may be as to other parts, it is a fact that the bird was unknown to me in Penobscot County, Maine.
Cowbirds are summer residents of Cape Ann, and I have studied their habits for years. I commenced by requiring answers to the following questions:
Why do birds, when victimized, rear the young cowbird?
Why does the young cowbird desert its foster parents to associate with its own kind?
Why do young cowbirds lay eggs in other birds' nests, instead of building nests for themselves?
How did the cowbird acquire this unnatural habit?
Writers on the subject usually answer the first question by the term "stupidity," and the other three by the word "instinct."
In all my life I have never found the birds stupid. They are as intelligent as to the requirements of bird life as man is as to the requirements of human life.
The theory of instinct is only a dream of the uninitiated. Nature's children are never troubled by such nightmares.
