164 HOMING WITH THE BIRDS 



from wetting the body. There are also several in 

 the series of the male in full tide of song. 



During the length of time I was at work collect- 

 ing the illustrations for this book I made a pho- 

 tograph having all of the pictorial value possible 

 to me, of every cardinal nest I could locate or that 

 any of my friends could find for me. Many of 

 these were of extreme beauty but none approached, 

 from the points of beauty and historical value, 

 that nest found by my daughter in the Valley of 

 the Wood Robin, long after the complete illustra- 

 tion of the life history of these birds was assured, 

 and at a time when the book was almost finished. 

 We were working together, systematically search- 

 ing through every shrub and bush for birds' nests, 

 when her cry of delight brought me to her. She 

 had flushed a hen cardinal, brooding in a thicket of 

 wild rose growing over a stack of brush on an old 

 stump at the edge of the swamp. It was not the 

 swamp wild rose but the genuine sweetbrier with 

 its pungent leaves, stout long climbing stems; and 

 the immediate region of the nest was a mass of 

 lovely pink blooms, shading from the deep red of 

 the unfolded buds to the strong pink flowers just 

 opened and the delicate pinkish white petals 

 almost ready to fall. The hen bird of this nest 

 could easily reach out and catch insects attracted 

 by the sweetness of the bloom when she was 

 brooding, while more could be had by rising to 

 her feet or hopping to the edge of the nest. 



