Volume I Part 17 (1/2)

Fam. XI. ICTERIDae, or TROUPIALS.

The Icteridae or Troupials const.i.tute a large group of Pa.s.serine birds allied to our Starlings (_Sturnidae_), of which they take the place in the New World. They are at once structurally distinguishable from the Starlings by having only 9 primaries in the wing, just as the Mniotiltidae of the New World are in a similar manner distinguishable from the Sylviidae.

In America the Icteridae play an important part, numbering some 130 species, and extending throughout the two continents from north to south. Of these, 15 species occur in Argentina, and amongst them are three species of Cow-bird (_Molothrus_), remarkable for their parasitic habits, of which Hudson's observations have enabled him to give a full and, for the first time, a tolerably complete account.

93. AMBLYCERCUS SOLITARIUS (Vieill.).

(SOLITARY Ca.s.sIQUE.)

+Ca.s.sicus solitarius+, _Scl. et Salv. Nomencl._ p. 36; _Barrows, Bull. Nutt. Orn. Cl._ viii. p. 133 (Entrerios); _Scl. Cat. B._ p. 326.

_Description._--Uniform black; bill white; feet black: total length 11 inches, wings 48, tail 45. _Female_ similar, but smaller.

_Hab._ Peru, Bolivia, Brazil, Paraguay, and Northern Argentina.

Mr. Barrows obtained a single specimen of this species at Concepcion, and others were seen. It was said to be an excellent song-bird, and to be more abundant further up the Uruguay River.

94. MOLOTHRUS BONARIENSIS (Gm.).

(ARGENTINE COW-BIRD.)

+Molothrus bonariensis+, _Scl. et Salv. Nomencl._ p. 37; _Hudson, P. Z. S._ 1872, p. 809, 1874, p. 153 (Buenos Ayres); _Durnford, Ibis_, 1877, pp. 33, 174 (Chupat); _White, P. Z. S._ 1882, p.

601 (Buenos Ayres); _Doring, Exp. al Rio Negro, Zool._ p. 41 (Carhue); _Barrows, Bull. Nutt. Orn. Cl._ viii. p. 133 (Entrerios); _Scl. Cat. B._ xi. p. 335. +Molothrus sericeus+, _Burm. La-Plata Reise_, ii. p. 494.

_Description._--Uniform s.h.i.+ning purplish black; less l.u.s.trous on wings and tail; bill and feet black: total length 75 inches, wing 45, tail 30. _Female_ dark ashy brown, beneath paler; slightly smaller in size.

_Hab._ Argentina, Paraguay, Bolivia, and Brazil.

This species is the _Tordo Comun_ of Azara, and is usually called ”_Tordo_” or ”_Pajaro Negro_” by the Spanish, and ”_Blackbird_” by the English-speaking Argentines. A more suitable name, I think, is the Argentine Cow-bird, which has been given to it by some writers on ornithology, Cow-bird being the name of the closely allied North-American species, _Molothrus pecoris_.

This Cow-bird is widely distributed in South America, and is common throughout the Argentine country, including Patagonia, as far south as Chupat. In Buenos Ayres it is very numerous, especially in cultivated districts where there are plantations of trees. The male is clothed in a glossy plumage of deep violaceous purple, the wings and tail being dark metallic green; but seen at a distance or in the shade the bird looks black. The female is inferior in size and has a dull, mouse-coloured plumage, and black beak and legs. The males are much more numerous than the females. Azara says that nine birds in ten are males; but I am not sure that the disparity is so great as that. It seems strange and contrary to Nature's usual rule that the smaller, shyer, inconspicuous individuals should be in such a minority; but the reason is perhaps that the _male eggs_ of the Cow-bird are harder-sh.e.l.led than the _female eggs_, and escape destruction oftener, when the parent bird exercises its disorderly and destructive habit of pecking holes in all the eggs it finds in the nests into which it intrudes.

The Cow-birds are sociable to a greater degree than most species, their companies not breaking up during the laying-season; for, as they are parasitical, the female merely steals away to drop her egg in any nest she can find, after which she returns to the flock. They feed on the ground, where in their movements and in the habit the male has of craning out its neck when disturbed, they resemble Starlings. The male has also a curious habit of carrying his tail raised vertically while feeding. They follow the domestic cattle about the pastures, and frequently a dozen or more birds may be seen perched along the back of a cow or horse. When the animal is grazing they group themselves close to its mouth, like chickens round a hen when she scratches up the ground, eager to s.n.a.t.c.h up the small insects exposed where the gra.s.s is cropped close. In spring they also follow the plough to pick up worms and grubs.

The song of the male, particularly when making love, is accompanied with gestures and actions somewhat like those of the domestic Pigeon. He swells himself out, beating the ground with his wings, and uttering a series of deep internal notes, followed by others loud and clear; and occasionally, when uttering them, he suddenly takes wing and flies directly away from the female to a distance of fifty yards, and performs a wide circuit about her in the air, singing all the time. The homely object of his short-lived pa.s.sion always appears utterly indifferent to this curious and pretty performance; yet she must be even more impressionable than most female birds, since she continues scattering about her parasitical and often wasted eggs during four months in every year. Her language consists of a long note with a spluttering sound, to express alarm or curiosity, and she occasionally chatters in a low tone as if trying to sing. In the evening, when the birds congregate on the trees to roost they often continue singing in concert until it is quite dark; and when disturbed at night the males frequently utter their song while taking flight, reminding one of the _Icterus pyrrhopterus_, which has only its usual melody to express fear and other painful emotions.

On rainy days, when they are driven to the shelter of trees, they will often sing together for hours without intermission, the blending of innumerable voices producing a rus.h.i.+ng sound as of a high wind. At the end of summer they congregate in flocks of tens of thousands, so that the ground where they are feeding seems carpeted with black, and the trees when they alight appear to have a black foliage. At such times one wonders that many small species on which they are parasites do not become extinct by means of their pernicious habit. In Buenos Ayres, where they are most numerous, they have a migration, which is only partial, however. It is noticeable chiefly in the autumn, and varies greatly in different years. In some seasons it is very marked, when for many days in February and March the birds are seen travelling northwards, flock succeeding flock all day long, pa.s.sing by with a swift low undulating flight, their wings producing a soft musical sound; and this humming flight of the migrating Cow-birds is as familiar to every one acquainted with nature in Buenos Ayres as the whistling of the wind or the distant lowing of cattle.

The procreant instinct of this _Molothrus_ has always seemed so important to me, for many reasons, that I have paid a great deal of attention to it; and the facts, or, at all events, the most salient of them, which I have collected during several years of observation, I propose to append here, cla.s.sified under different headings so as to avoid confusion and to make it easy for other observers to see at a glance just how much I have learnt.

Though I have been familiar with this species from childhood, when I used to hunt every day for their wasted eggs on the broad, clean walks of the plantation, and removed them in pity from the nests of little birds where I found them, I have never ceased to wonder at their strange instinct, which in its wasteful destructive character, so unlike the parasitical habit in other species, seems to strike a discordant note in the midst of the general harmony of nature.

_Mistakes and Imperfections of the Procreant Instinct of_ Molothrus bonariensis.

1. The Cow-birds, as we have seen, frequently waste their eggs by dropping them on the ground.

2. They also occasionally lay in old forsaken nests. This I have often observed, and to make very sure I took several old nests and placed them in trees and bushes, and found that eggs were laid in them.

3. They also frequently lay in nests where incubation has actually begun. When this happens the Cow-bird's egg is lost if incubation is far advanced; but if the eggs have been sat on three or four days only, then it has a good chance of being hatched and the young bird reared along with its foster-brothers.