124 The Wilson Bulletin— No. 113 



which was his limit in the central portion of the state. 

 Old settlers had never known the Red Bird. None of the 

 bird students of the region had ever seen him at that time. 



Carlen Rudy, in telling of the birds seen in the winter 

 of 1918-19 at Ft. Madison, in Lee county, says, "On the morn- 

 ing of December 26, 1918, I observed several male cardinals 

 and one female near Ft. Madison. On December 27, as I 

 was on my way to Hillsbow, by train, I saw many cardi- 

 nals in associfftion with chickadees, juncoes, and titmice. 

 The snow was quite deep and the temperature below zero. 

 Four miles from Hillsbow, on a farm, I observed the card- 

 inals daily until I left the place, on January 5, 1919. I 

 also observed them near Salem in Henry county, during 

 that same period. They were abundant during the entire 

 time that I was there. The temperature ranged from zero 

 to twenty below." The same record whicli is taken from 

 the bird journal kept by Mr. Rudy states that the farmers 

 of the region told him that the Red Birds came in the fall 

 and remained throughout the winter. However, another 

 observer of the same region told him that they were present 

 in the summer also, though not so numerous. 



The reason for the greater numbers in the winter might 

 be that some which had summered further north came a 

 little south for the winter, or simply that those which had 

 nested in obscured places were not observed during the 

 summer, whereas the openness of winter made them con- 

 spicuous. The first records of our north-central region 

 have been such as to lead me to the belief that the cardinal, 

 though a resident in most of his range, may be migTatory 

 to a slight extent in the vei*y edge of it. The Ft. Madison 

 region is far from the edge of tlie present range of this 

 bird. But I think that the large numbers of individuals 

 observed in that region in the dead of winter may be ac- 

 counted for in the fact that there were some which were 

 following migratorj^ habits, though of very slight extent. 



If data were available regarding the cardinal along all 

 points of the Mississippi valley from the Ft. Madison region 



