A Book on Birds 



Thoroughly baffled, you try your best, 

 but in vain, to locate the elusive sound, 

 with each repetition. 



Then — just as you are giving up — you 

 see a bright red figure — like a diminutive 

 Mephistopheles — sitting absolutely motion- 

 less on a branch scarce ten feet away. 



Of course you know him at once for 

 the brilliant, but erratic Cardinal, or Vir- 

 ginia Red-bird; the one who looks so like 

 the warm-blooded tropics, and yet insists 

 on staying right up here in the North 

 through our hardest winters, making him- 

 self at times, after a snowfall, glorious 

 to behold, above the dazzling whiteness 

 of the fields — a sort of hostage given by 

 May to December for the sure return of 

 spring; and whose second most distinguish- 

 ing trait, I think, is that he can hide better 

 and longer — making music all the time — 

 than any other feathered denizen of field 

 or forest. 



Now that he sees you he sits as still as 

 a statue until you make a move toward 

 him; whereupon he flies off, to hide again 



[116] 



