Don’t Lay Your Eggs All in One Basket: Brood Parasitism as a Survival Strategy

摘要

This month’s cover image,1 Plate 99 from Birds of America(printed in stages during 1827–1838) by Americanornithologist, naturalist, and painter John James Audubon(1785–1851), shows a pair of oft-vilified brown-headedcowbirds. This painting appears in the book as one of 435life-sized watercolors that were reproduced from Audubon’shand-engraved plates. In this painting, he portraysthe birds frozen in act of foraging, a technique he honedfrom observing birds where they lived. Audubon’s ownwords best describe the work: “Male with the head andneck sooty-brown, the body black, glossed with green, thefore part of the back with blue. Female considerably smaller,greyish-brown, the lower parts lighter.”