The black snake is the most subtle, alert, and devilish of our
snakes, and I have never seen him have any but young, helpless birds
in his mouth.
We have one parasitical bird, the cow-bird, so-called because it walks
about amid the grazing cattle and seizes the insects which their heavy
tread sets going, which is an enemy of most of the smaller birds.
It drops its egg in the nest of the song-sparrow, the social sparrow,
the snow-bird, the vireos, and the wood-warblers, and as a rule it is
the only egg in the nest that issues successfully. Either the eggs of
the rightful owner of the nest are not hatched, or else the young are
overridden and overreached by the parasite and perish prematurely.
Among the worst enemies of our birds are the so-called "collectors,"
men who plunder nests and murder their owners in the name of science.
Not the genuine ornithologist, for no one is more careful of
squandering bird life than he; but the sham ornithologist, the man
whose vanity or affectation happens to take an ornithological turn.
He is seized with an itching for a collection of eggs and birds because
it happens to be the fashion, or because it gives him the air of a man
of science.
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