EASTERN CARDINAL 5 



are bowl-shaped, some compactly built and well-lined, others very flimsy with 

 scarcely any lining. 



She says that the nest is usually built by the female alone. Three 

 nests that she watched from start to finish were completed in 3, 4, 

 and 9 days, respectively; and the first egg was laid within 5 or 6 

 days after the nest was finished. "Four nestings in a season are 

 not uncommon." 



G. M. Sutton (MS.) specifies a wide variety of nesting habitat. 

 The nesting site may be wholly removed from the feeding grounds 

 in shrubbery in swamplands, in cedars in dry old fields, or in sassafras 

 trees in the shade of tall oaks and hickories. Sutton's study of 21 

 nests in Oklahoma showed the highest 15 feet up, the lowest 15 inches; 

 average height was 5.9 feet. There were 15 clutches believed com- 

 plete, with 3.2 eggs per clutch. In two nests containing 4 eggs each, 

 only 3 eggs hatched. 



Nests have been recorded as high as 20 feet by Trautman (1940) 

 and 30 feet, very rarely, by Oberholser (1927). Harold M. Holland 

 (1930 and 1934) reports cardinals nesting for two different seasons in a 

 woven-wire sparrow trap on a beam in an outbuilding. 



William Youngworth (1955a) conmaents that a pair with a nest 

 6 feet up disregarded his Siamese cat throughout the entire nesting 

 period. Much of the time the female was away from the nest and the 

 male nowhere in sight. Something drove the female from the nest 

 just before 10:00 p.m. one night; the bird returned almost an hour 

 later. He comments on the ability of the bird to see in the dark. 

 The female stopped night-brooding the lone nestlmg when it was 5 

 days old. On the 10th morning after hatching, the young bird, 

 after 2 hours of calling by both parents, scrambled from the nest and 

 flew 6 feet to a tree. Upon this, the mother bird flew away and 

 Youngworth did not again see her near the offspring or in the neigh- 

 borhood. She left the bird in the care of the male. 



Oscar Hawksley and Alvah P. McCormack (1951) describe a doubly 

 occupied nest. At one time both females were actually on the nest, 

 facing in opposite directions. 



Andrew J. Berger writes Taber that the breeding season of this 

 species in Michigan, formerly almost unknown there, is from mid-April 

 to mid-September. He found a female incubating four eggs on April 

 19, 1954. A nest held three eggs on August 26, 1955, and on Sep- 

 tember 7 the three young were still in the nest. On September 17 

 he collected a young bird (tail 1.5 inches long) stiU being fed by 

 adults, and he saw another family group with voung of about the same 

 age in another area. 



Eggs. — The cardinal lays from two to five eggs, with three or four 

 most often forming the set. They are ovate, occasionally tending to 



