it is fledged, will swell itself up and strike angrily at the intruder with beak and wings; and, by making so brave a show of its inefficient weapons, it probably often saves itself from destruction. But any thing approaching the young _Molothrus_ is welcomed with fluttering wings and clamorous cries, as if all creatures were expected to minister to its necessities. December 24.--To-day I found a young _Molothrus_ in the nest of _Spermophila cærulescens_; he cried for food on seeing my hand approach the nest; I took him out and dropped him down, when, finding himself on the ground, he immediately made off, half-flying. After a hard chase I succeeded in recapturing him, and began to twirl him about, making him scream, so as to inform his foster-parents of his situation, for they were not by at the moment. I then put him back in, or rather upon, the little cradle of a nest, and plucked half-a-dozen large measure-worms from an adjacent twig. The worms I handed to the bird as I drew them from the cases, and with great greediness he devoured them all, notwithstanding the ill-treatment he had just received, and utterly disregarding the wild excited cries of his foster-parents, just arrived and hovering within three or four feet of the nest. Last summer I noticed a young Cow-bird in a stubble-field, perched on the top of a slender dry stalk; as it was clamouring at short intervals, I waited to see what bird would come to it. It proved to be the diminutive _Hapalocercus flaviventris_; and I was much amused to see the little thing fly directly to its larger foster-offspring and, alighting on its back, drop a worm into the upturned open mouth. After remaining a moment on its singular perch, the Flycatcher flew away, but in less than half a minute returned and perched again on the young bird's back. I continued watching them until the _Molothrus_ flew off, but not before I had seen him fed seven or eight times in the same manner. In the foregoing anecdotes may be seen the peculiar habits of the young _Molothrus_. As the nests in which it is hatched, from those of the little _Serpophaga_ and Wren to those of _Mimus_, vary so much in size and materials, and are placed in such different situations, the young _Molothrus_ must have in most of them a somewhat incongruous appearance. But in the habits of the young bird is the greatest incongruity or inadaptation. When the nest is in a close thicket or forest, though much too small for the bird, and although the bird itself cannot understand its foster-parents, and welcomes all things that, whether with good or evil design, come near it, the unfitness is not so apparent as when the nest is in open fields and plains.