Notes from Field and Study 



271 



one male and female Red-bellied, two 

 Flickers, eight Blue Jays, two Bronzed 

 Crackles, five Song Sparrows, one Towhee, 

 eleven Cardinals, one Mockingbird, one 

 Carolina Wren, one White-breasted Nut- 

 hatch, two Tufted Titmice, three Chicka- 

 dees, two Robins, and have seen in the yard 

 but not at the table, one Sparrow Hawk, 

 one Screech Owl, and one Brown Creeper. 



I have a 22 rifle and with BB caps keep 

 the English Sparrows thinned out. I 

 raise the window slightly or open the door 

 just enough to see out, and the explosion 

 is all inside the house, so that the report 

 does not alarm the other birds. I have 

 killed Sparrows not a foot from the other 

 birds and not frightened them. They 

 look down at the fallen Sparrow and 

 wonder what's happened. 



The Cardinals, Song Sparrows, Mock- 

 ingbird, Robins and Towhee roost in 

 vines on the back porch. The Cardinals 

 and Song Sparrows sing all winter. We 

 have heard the Song Sparrow singing 

 happily when the thermometer registered 

 below zero. The last few daj's the Towhee 

 sings in a low voice almost constantly, a 

 rolling almost continuous warble remind- 

 ing us of the whisper-song of the Catbird, 

 possibly a little louder. He returned to us 

 again this year about the time he came 

 last year. We feel certain it is the same 

 bird, for he went immediately to the 

 feeding-table and made himself at home. 



Bird-lovers who have not provided a 

 feeding-table for the birds are missing the 

 greatest pleasure in their study. — H. H. 

 Henderson, Wilmington, Ohio. 



An Iowa Cardinal 



For two winters — fierce Iowa winters 

 when the mercury may sink to sixty 

 degrees of frost — the Cardinal has neigh- 

 bored with us. Against the background of 

 our Iowa snows, with his fiery tropic plum- 

 age, he is as outre as a palm in Iceland. 



The 'Kentucky Cardinal' of James 

 Lane Allen is a shy and timorous bird. 

 He conceals himself in the cedars and 

 shrubbery of the garden. Peace, peace, 

 peace he softly sings. But my Iowa Car- 



dinal is more aggressive than the Blue 

 Jay or the English Sparrow; his obtrusions 

 are dramatic and spectacular; his tzip, 

 Izip, tzip, is a song of battle. Almost any 

 morning at breakfast we may see him 

 perched upon a branch of Japan lilac just 

 outside the window. Thence he launches 

 himself, a flaming thunderbolt, directly at 

 us. Hurtling through six or seven feet of 

 air, wings and tail-feathers wide outspread, 

 he strikes the upper window-pane and 

 falls to the snowy sill. He gasps for 

 breath, his little bill opening and closing. 

 His tail twitches with excitement. With 

 an occasional tzip, tzip, he hops along, 

 pecking fiercely at the glass. Then flying 

 straight upward he strikes the upper pane 

 a glancing blow and whirls back again to 

 his perch upon the lilac. Discouraged? 

 Not at all. Try, try again, is his maxim. 

 For hours he gives us an exhibition of 

 aeronautics as fascinating as that of Sea 

 Gulls astern the ship. And all so close at 

 hand. I wish I had a movie film of it. 

 And many a summer afternoon as I am 

 working in the garden I hear the red bird 

 assaulting a basement window screened 

 by a tall barberry. 



When the Cardinal began rapping at 

 our dining-room window at breakfast we 

 imagined that he was asking for admit- 

 tance. He is trying to come in out of 

 the alien cold to his native Louisiana 

 warmth, to shelter, to food, and good 

 friends within. To test this theory we 

 left the window open, but the game was 

 off, the Cardinal flew away. 



We failed to understand our Cardinal 

 because we did not look at things from his 

 angle. With my eye at his precise view- 

 point on the lilac branch, I found that he 

 could see nothing within the room; the 

 glass was not an invisible barrier, but a 

 broad and perfect mirror. What he saw 

 was another Cardinal, a rival, alert, 

 aggressive, his black beady eyes aflame 

 with war, his wings stirring for attack. 

 The Cardinal may confuse the objective 

 and the subjective, but his strategy is 

 classic. He believes in a swift offensive. 

 He strikes and collects his justifying 

 causes later. 



