After a time the old birds grow disgusted and tumble the poor eggs all out of the nest and bestow their whole attention to the juvenile cowbird, entirely ignorant of the fact that they are the victims of a "put-up job." Once when we were dining in the pasture we found out the cause of the booming noise we had often heard sounding through the woods.

Two men, each carrying in his hand a long club, shaped large at one end, appeared in the meadow and began looking among the long grasses which sheltered the nests of some meadow larks.

A number of the larks were on the wing, others sat on the rail fence rolling out cadenzas in concert in a gush of melody from their downy throats.

The men moved cautiously nearer under cover of the weeds.

Raising their long clubs to their shoulders they gazed along their narrow points a moment.
Without exactly knowing why, we took alarm, and larks, bobolinks, and cowbirds sped upward like the wind.