BIRDS OF MINNESOTA. 339 



They build a very concealed nest the last week in May — 

 sometimes a little earlier — in an excavation in the ground deep 

 enough so that it is, when finished, about even with the sur- 

 rounding surface and under cover of brushwood or in a thick 

 tuft of grass. It is bulky, consisting of shreds of bark and dry 

 leaves, and is lined with fine grass . It lays about five eggs of 

 a dingy white color, finely speckled all over with reddish-brown 

 and lilac. 



SPECIFIC CHARACTERS. 



Upper parts generally, head and neck all around, and upper 

 part of the breast glossy black, abruptly defined against the 

 pure white that extends to the anus, but is bounded on the 

 sides and under the wings by light chestnut. Under coverts 

 similar to sides, but paler. Edges of outer six primaries with 

 white at the base, and on the middle of the outer web; inner 

 two tertiaries also edged externally with white. Tail feathers 

 black; outer web of the first, with the ends of the first to the 

 third, white, decreasing from the exterior one. Iris red. 



Length, 8.75; wing, 3.75; tail 4.10. 



Habitat, eastern United States to the Missouri river. 



CARDINALIS CARDINALIS (L.). (593.) 



CARDINAL. 



I have on several occasions referred to this southern species 

 as an accidental straggler into Minnesota. Since the last of 

 my lists was published, I have had further evidence that it has 

 been seen under circumstances and at such times in the year as 

 to justify the recognition of being an occasional summer resi- 

 dent in the southeastern portion of the State and northeast- 

 wardly into the more central portions. Those places where it 

 has been observed have been, so far as my sources of informa- 

 tion extend, in the vicinity of clearings and improved farms in 

 the larger bodies of deciduous timber. 



It has proved to be much less a strictly southern bird than 

 the early writers supposed. A permanent resident there, it 

 becomes decidedly migrant after reaching Virginia and Penn- 

 sylvania, Ohio, Indiana and Southern Illinois. It has been ob- 

 served as far north on the Atlantic coast as Nova Scotia, and 

 now, as above recorded, in Minnesota in the interior. Con- 

 siderable numbers of them are permanent in Ohio, remaining 

 in pairs in patches of woods near cornfields. When speak- 

 ing of northern Ohio, Rev. J. H. Langille says of this species 

 " more common in winter than in summer." 



