FAMILY Fringillide. 
Mr. Eugene P. Bicknell apparently has caught exactly the 
spirit of the music, for he writes: ‘A bird’s song! An 
emotional outburst rising full-toned and clear, passing all 
too quickly to a closing cadence which seems to linger in 
the silent air.”’ That ‘‘closing cadence” is precisely what 
the rallentando represents. Then Mr. Bicknell continues, 
unconsciously indicating the Cantabile, “it breaks forth 
as if inspired from pure joy in the awakened season, though 
with some vague undertone scarcely of sadness, rather of, 
some lower tone of joy.’”’ No small bird possesses the 
equal of the Fox Sparrow’s rich voice, and none other, 
great or small, seems to take life more happily and con- 
tentedly; yet that voice sings mostly to the dreary wilder- 
ness in the far North, and its cheery possessor literally 
grubs for his living with both feet at once. Watch him in 
early March as he scratches among the dead leaves under 
the shrubbery and it becomes evident that he can outdo 
the old hen at her own game! 
Cardinal The Cardinal ranges throughout the 
mid im poe eastern United States from Iowa and south- 
L.8.25 inches €©2 New York to the Gulf coast. Mr. Elon” 
Permanent Howard Eaton considers this distinctively 
resident South southern bird commonest in New York in the 
extreme southeastern counties west of the Hudson River— 
notably Rockland County. It is certainly rare or absent in 
all other parts of the State. A beautiful singer, it is often 
caught and reared in captivity and the song in such in- 
stances is not materially different from that of the bird in 
freedom.* The Cardinal’s colors are a bright scarlet lake 
tone of red much colder than the scarlet Tanager’s intense 
hue; the plumage of the upper parts is tinged with gray, 
bill dull red, the region between it and the eye, and the 
throat for quite a distance down, black; the pronounced 
crest, wings, tail, and under parts a brighter red. Female 
a much duller and browner toned red. Nest, built of twigs, 
* Of course the close association of caged young birds means the 
inevitable exercise of their imitative faculty, and inherited forms 
of song are subject to great variation one way or another; but I 
must emphatically state that the mechanical rhythm of a particu- 
lar species is seldom if ever liable to interference by some other 
species. 
290 
