The Cardinal in North-Central Iowa 125 



to the region of New Albion, in North-eastern Iowa, a 

 stimulating study might be made of the cardinal's habits. 

 Since I have not been able to find such, however, I have 

 merely picked up here and tliere notes which observers 

 have sent to me. The notes are very fragmentaiy, and are 

 too scattered to be of much scientific value. But such as. 

 I have been able to secure, I shall here present. 



In Allamakee county, Miss Althea Sherman has made 

 notable contributions to our knowledge of the cardinal. 

 In a second article A^hich she published regarding the card- 

 inal in that region she says that the first one seen in that 

 locality so far as she was able to find any records, was in 

 November, 190G, when the late Senator Robert Glenn of 

 Wyalusing, Wis., and his friend, Mr. H. W. Brown, of Lan- 

 caster, Wis., saw a male cardinal just north of the village 

 of Wyalusing.* On December 11, 1906, Mrs. Mary E. 

 Hatch saw one of the species in McGregor, Iowa. And in 

 February, 1907, Senator Glenn again saw one. The next 

 record from the McGregor region is the one which Miss 

 Sherman can claim as her own. On April 17, 1908, two 

 cardinals were seen by her on the banks of the Mississippi 

 River, directly across from Wyalusing and six miles from 

 her home. The slow advance of these birds up Suy Magill 

 creek is a characteristic and interesting chapter in the 

 story of the cardinal. In April, 1913, Miss Sherman said 

 that she was told that nearlj^ a dozen cardinals were seen 

 by a farmer on a bluff near this creek. They had become 

 resident on this farm at about this time. The first record 

 which Miss Sherman gives of the cardinals as Avinter 

 boarders, is that of Mrs. M. A. Jordan of McGregor, who 

 had a cardinal at her bird table during the last week of 

 December, 1908. This bird remained upwards of three 

 months. After that winter the species came regularly. 

 Mrs. M. A. Jordan is also quoted as having had the first 

 nesting record of these birds, when two broods came from 



* Sherman — Article on the cardinal in Wilson Bulletin 

 Sept., 1913, P. 150. 



