THE GUIDE TO NATURE 



grosbeak, as I had so often pictured him 

 in my mnid in his native woods. I never 

 tired of looking at the beautiful plate of 

 a pair of those birds in my treasured copy 

 of Audubon, nor at a mounted specimen 

 of a magnificent male in the collection of 

 my old instructor in taxidermy, Mr. 

 James Jenkins of Stamford; perhaps 

 some of the old folks there can still re- 

 member him — he has been dead many 

 years now. 



]My seeing an old male cardinal gros- 

 beak in the woods, however, came to pass 

 sooner than I had anticipated ; for I was 

 but a few months past my fourteenth 

 birthday when I found myself aboard 

 a man-of-war as an officer, during the 

 third year of the Civil War. One day, 

 when I was ashore alone on Key West 

 Island, Florida, I availed myself of the 

 opportmiiity to get into the swampy woods 

 east of the town ; it was there that I 

 saw my first cardinal grosbeak. It was 

 a magnificent male bird in full plumage, 

 and I can remember his coral red bill 

 set in black ; his scarlet coat and his ele- 

 gant crest of the same color — just as 

 though it were an incident of yesterday. 



Twenty years after, I saw hundreds of 

 cardinals in Louisiana, Mississippi, Ala- 

 bama, and several other southern states. 

 In these days, my home is in Washington, 

 D. C, and I probably see several hundred 

 cardinals every year, running across per- 

 haps four or five of their nests each 

 spring. 



A couple of seasons ago, I was in Mary- 

 land with a friend after birds' nests with 

 a camera. Among some excellent results 

 I obtained upon that occasion, a nest of 

 the cardinal grosbeak was one of the most 

 successful ones. The pair had built in 

 a very unusual, and in what they doubt- 

 less thought a very safe place, for they 

 had chosen the slender lim'bs and twigs 

 of the brush, and a small sapling that 

 grew out from the sides of a high bank 

 of one of the branches of the Potomac 

 River. The nest was more than a yard 

 from the solid bank, and upwards of eight 

 or ten feet above the stream w'hich ran 

 rapidly below. I was over an hour plac- 

 jp-r niy old-fashioned camera in piisi^' 

 to get that cardinal's nest ; but I suc- 

 ceeded at last, and the result is here 

 shown in Fig. t. 



The e^gs are creamy white, sreckled 

 with umber and various shades of brown, 

 and they are here given, natural size, in 

 Fis: 2. This last illustration eives such 



an excellent idea of the structure of the 

 nest of this grosbeak that no further 

 description is necessary. It now forms 

 a part of the exhibition series of nests of 



FIG. 3. YOUNC. OF THE BARRED OWL (STRIX 

 V. VARIA) AS HE APPEARS AT THE EN- 

 TRANCE TO HIS NEST. 



About one-half natural size. 



the birds of the District of Columbia in 

 the L . S. National Museum. 



Some time ago I had in my possession 

 as a pet a fine nestling of the Barred Owl. 

 He was a gentle and interesting bird, 

 and while I had him I succeeded in mak- 

 ing a number of valuable negatives of 

 him. He was a most accommodating" 

 poser, and one of my best pictures of 

 him is here shown in Fig. 3. He is now 

 full grown and in superb adult plumage, 

 and occupies a comfortable and commo- 

 dious cage at the National Zoological 

 Gardens, where I presented him last sum- 

 mer. My hope is that the specimen will 

 be responsible for letti'ng a good many 

 visitors and others know what an Ameri- 

 can Barred Owl looks like ; its presence 

 there would certainly tend to that end, 

 were the cage to which he was assigned 

 to bear a proper label, giving the neces- 

 sary data for the information of the 

 public. 



