154 Sketches of Some Common Birds. 



conspicuous. Her wings and her tail — the latter showing 

 conspicuously over the rim of her bark-woven home — 

 were colored to correspond with her crest. She was a 

 close sitter, and after a few visits she would not slip from 

 the nest unless startled by some awkward or threatening 

 movement of the observer. Then she would flit about the 

 premises and utter that sharp chirp, and her knightly hus- 

 band would join her with his earnest remonstrances. Soon 

 I would leave the habitation undisturbed, and presently 

 the eloquent whistling of the happy male told me that 

 peace again reigned over the embowered fountain of his 



joy. 



The nests of the cardinal are constructed soon after the 

 middle of April in favorite localities, and somewhat later 

 in other regions. While enjoying an outing in the river 

 bottom near Pearl, Illinois, on May 6th, I found a nest of 

 the cardinal containiog three young birds several days 

 old; hence this nest doubtless was founded about the 

 middle of April. The season, however, was exceptionally 

 early, and averaged two weeks earlier than ordinary 

 seasons. May is the month when most of the nests are 

 built and the eggs deposited, and June and July are pretty 

 certain to witness nests and fresh eggs of the species. 

 These data indicate that the breeding season is long and 

 uncertain, and perhaps more than one brood is reared in 

 some instances. The site of the nest is commonly be- 

 tween four and eight feet from the ground, and climbing 

 or tangled vines appear to furnish the most desirable 

 places. I found a nest one spring against a fence-post, 

 set in a clambering grapevine, near a railroad; and all of 

 seven nests of the cardinals that I examined in 1896, with 

 one exception, were placed in the stems of climbing vines. 

 Wild gooseberry bushes and small haw and other trees are 

 regularly selected in which to place their habitations. The 

 cardinal is commonly more shy and retiring at the season 

 of nidification and incubation than at other times, and in- 

 stances of its nesting in public places are the exceptions. 



The nest is usually composed externally of coarse pieces 

 of dried leaves and weed stems, frequently on a founda- 

 tion of paper, rags, or any materials obtainable, unless in 

 regular wildwood surroundings. Grapevine bark appears 



