86 



Bird - Lore 



CARDINAL 



When he saw the familiar form, he evidently thought his lost love 

 restored, for he burst into glorious song ; but, soon discovering his 

 mistake, he stopped short in his hallelujahs, and walked around the 

 cage inspecting the occupant. 



Louisa's admiration for the Cardinal was marked ; but for some 



days he took little notice of her, 

 and his friends began to fear that 

 their second attempt at match- 

 making would prove a failure. 

 April 30, however, some respon- 

 sive interest was shown, and the 

 next day Louis brought to the 

 cage a brown bug half an inch 

 long, and gave Louisa his first 

 meat-offering. 



The second wooing progressed 

 rapidly, and May 7, when Louisa 

 was set free, the pair flew away 

 together with unrestrained de- 

 light. After three days of liberty, 

 Louisa flew back to the house with her mate, and thenceforth was a 

 frequent visitor. 



May 21, Louisa was seen carrying straws, and on June 6 her nest 

 was discovered low down in a dense evergreen thorn ( Cratcegus pyra- 

 caufha). Four speckled eggs lay in the nest. These were hatched 

 June g, the parent birds, meantime and afterward, going regularly to 

 market and keeping up social relations with their friends. 



In nine days after their exit from the shell, the little Cardinals left 

 the nest and faced life's sterner realities. A black cat was their worst 

 foe, and more than once during their youth Louis flew to his devoted 

 commissary and made known his anxiety. Each time, on following 

 him to the nest, she found the black prowler, or one of his kind, 

 w^atching for prey. On June 28, the black cat outwitted the allied 

 forces, Senor Cardinal and his friends, and a little one was slain. 

 The other three grew up and enjoyed all the privileges of their parents, 

 flying in at the window and frequenting the bountiful porch. 



July 25, Louisa disappeared from the scene, presumably on a 

 southern trip, leaving the Cardinal sole protector, provider and peace- 

 maker for their lively and quarrelsome triplet. A fight is apparently 

 as needful for the development of a young Cardinal as of an English 

 schoolboy, possibly due in both cases to a meat diet. 



Over-feeding was h\\\. temporary with our birds. On the 8th of 

 August the migratory instinct prevailed over ease, indulgence, friend- 



