290 



MEMOIRS OF THE NUTTALL ORNITHOLOGICAL CLUB. 



There can be little doubt that Towhees occasionally spend the winter in 

 the Cambridge Region, for a male in full song was seen by Mr. William P. 

 Hadley at Arlington Heights on March 23, 1902, a date fully a month earlier 

 than that at which migrants ordinarily arrive from the south, while another 

 bird of the same sex was noted by Mr. G. M. Allen and Mr. J. T. Nichols near 

 the Museum of Comparative Zoology, Cambridge, on December 3, 1904. The 

 species has been reported as occurring in Bedford on January 2, 1896, in Brook- 

 line on December 25, 1895, and again on March 23 following, and at Jamaica 

 Plain on December 27, 1895. 



174. Cardinalis cardinalis (Linn.). 

 Cardinal. Cardinal Grosbeak. 



Of irregular, but not very infrequent, occurrence at all seasons. 



The earliest known instance of the appearance of the Cardinal in the Cam- 

 bridge Region is apparently that recorded by Nuttall in the following words : — 



"After listening with so much delight to the lively fife of the splendid Car- 

 dinal, as I travelled alone through the deep and wild solitudes which prevail 

 over the Southern States, and bid, as I thought, perhaps an eternal adieu to the 

 sweet voice of my charming companions, what was my surprise and pleasure, on 

 the 7th of May, to hear, for the first time in this State, and in the Botanic Gar- 

 den [Cambridge], above an hour together, the lively and loud song of this 

 exquisite vocalist, whose voice rose above every rival of the feathered race, and 

 rung almost in echoes through the blooming grove in which he had chosen his 



retreat The bird which frequented the Botanic Garden for several days, 



in the morning sang fearlessly and loudly, but at other times the pair hid them- 

 selves amongst the thickest bushes, or descended to the ground to feed among 



the grass and collect insects and worms About the 4th of July, the same 



pair, apparently, paid us a parting visit, and the male sung with great energy."^ 



Messrs. Howe and Allen assert ^ that the Cardinal bred "at the Botanical 

 Gardens, Cambridge, about 1835," citing Audubon alone as their authority. In 

 volume HI of the first edition of the 'Birds of America,' published in 1841, 



IT. Nuttall, Manual of the Ornithology of the United States and of Canada. The Land Birds, 

 1832, 521, 523. 



2R. H. Howe, Jr., and G. M.Allen, Birds of Massachusetts, 1901, 118. 



