4 U.S. NATIONAL MUSEUM BULLETIN 237 part i 



for any particular species. Very few are placed in trees; most of them 

 are built in tangled thickets or dense shrubbery. A. Dawes Du Bois 

 has sent me his notes on 14 Illinois nests; 2 of these were in saplings 6 

 feet from the groimd, 1 in woods, and 1 in a ravine; 1 was in a tangle of 

 old vines on a fallen stump in some river-bottom woods; the others 

 were all in bushes, at heights ranging from 2}^ to 6 feet above the 

 ground ; the bushes were located along the banks of creeks, at the road- 

 side, and in woods or thickets; 2 were in blackberry bushes or tangles, 

 1 in a gooseberry bush, and 1 in spirea bushes close to a house; another 

 was "in a large bush in Washington Park in Springfield, where auto- 

 mobiles passed only about 20 feet away." 



W. E. Shore writes to me about some Toronto nests: "Five nests 

 which I visited this year were all within the city limits. One was 

 in High Park, within 2 or 3 feet of one of the busiest walks and, no 

 doubt hundreds of people daily walked by within arm's reach of the 

 nest, which was only 3 feet from the ground in an Austrian pine. 

 Another was 12 feet from the ground in an orange-blossom bush in 

 a back yard in the heart of the city. * * * Another nest noted was 

 in a rose arbor 6 feet high in a city garden, and another was in a 

 vine growing on the side wall of a back porch. The door of the porcli, 

 through which people passed all day, was only 3 or 4 feet from the 

 nest and the kitchen window was directly over it. 



"One other nest that I would like to mention was built in a small 

 bush in a greenhouse connected with a flower shop in the center of 

 the city. Entrance was gained through a broken pane, which the 

 owner kindly refrained from repairing until the young had been led 

 out." 



Gertrude Fay Harvey (1903) photographed a nest in a rose vine 

 in a conservatory. 



Frederick S. Barkalow, Jr., writes to me of an Alabama nest that 

 was 5 feet from the ground in a small Pinus taeda, 1 foot from the 

 trimk. 



Mrs. Amelia R. Laskey (1944), who has found a total of 103 nests 

 near Nashville, Tenn., writes: 



As nest sites, Cardinals choose young evergreens of many varieties; privet 

 hedges; many species of vines, including rose and honeysuckle; shrubbery; and 

 saplings of hackberry, elm, hawthorn, and locust. I have found them from 

 2>4 to 12 feet from the ground, but 4 to 5 feet is the usual height. * * * Most 

 nests are concealed in forks of twigs and small branches or in mats of vines stems, 

 but one at my home was built upon a platform of twigs which I had placed in 

 a privet shrub where the pair had tried to anchor material in unsuitable forks. 

 Another was built on the ledge of a lattice fence between poultry wire with nothing 

 for concealment. * * * E. Copeland (1936) describes a Cardinal nest built 

 in a feeding shelf outside a second-story window. 



Nests are composed most commonly of weed stems, small pliable twigs, strips 

 of bark, grasses, vines, and rootlets, with leaves and paper interwoven. They 



