128 The Wilson Bulletin— No. 113 



riv^er valleys, so it may be that the birds also follow. On 

 December 25, 1917, Mr. Russell wrote from Harpers Ferry^ 

 " Our cardinals are again with us this winter but other 

 birds seen very scarce." It appears from this, that once 

 established in a given area, the cardinal tends to maintain 

 itself. The last report from Mr. Russell as regards card- 

 inals, was in a letter of March 23, 1918, in which he says^ 

 " On a walk to Waukon Junction, yesterday, I saw six 

 pairs of cardinals." As one reads such records as these he 

 can not help but wonder how much farther north the Red 

 Bird will go. He has apparently reached the very north- 

 em limit of our state along its eastern border. And now 

 for the record of the inland. 



Quoting from a letter from Miss Sherman, again, 

 " Mrs. Ida Hobson I'ike, a daughter of Judge H. N. Hobson^ 

 has written me of the coining of the cardinal to West 

 Union. The first one was seen in the woods near W^est 

 Union in November, 1915. In a few days one appeared at 

 the feeding table of Mrs. Pike. He came everj^ day until 

 spring. In November, 1916, he reappeared. Soon his dead 

 body was found on the snow in a nearby wood, apparently 

 the victim of a bird of prey. Others came. Two years- 

 later she was feeding four pairs at one time." 



The cardinals in reaching West Union probably fol- 

 lowed the Turkey River to Elgin, then gradually worked 

 westward, following that branch of the Turkey which goes- 

 through West Union. And at the same time that they 

 were working north and west along those streams, they 

 were apparently working north along the Cedar river, and 

 west along the Upper Iowa. They probably worked west- 

 ward from some such place as New Albin, following the 

 Upper Iowa, for it was not until 1917 that it was seen at 

 Decorah, loAva. Mr. A. F. Porter writes of the species, 

 "It appeared here (Decorah) about three years ago, and 

 has since become more and more plentiful in this locality 

 each year but it is not a common species. It winters here 

 and I have seen it here this winter (1919-20), and every 



