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MEMOIRS OF THE NUTTALL ORNITHOLOGICAL CLUB. 



only a few minutes after it was first noticed and on departing flew off towards 

 the west. So far as I know, it was not afterwards observed by any one. 



In 1905 a male Cardinal spent the greater part of the autumn in Cam- 

 bridge. It was first noticed late in September by Miss Caroline L. Parsons in 

 the grounds immediately about her house on Garden Street. Here it remained 

 through the greater part of October, paying occasional visits to the Botanic 

 Garden where it was seen by various members of the Nuttall Club. Later in 

 the season it wandered more widely. In November it appeared about several of 

 the houses on Buckingham and Sparks Streets, where it attracted much atten- 

 tion. It was observed in our garden on November 17, 18, 23 and 30 and 

 December 8 and 13. On each of the last two dates it alighted on the sill of 

 my study window where it remained for several minutes, eating hemp seed and 

 suet, within a few feet of the desk at which I sat writing, giving me an excellent 

 opportunity to examine it closely. It was a beautiful bird, in perfect plumage 

 and condition, showing no signs which I could detect that it had ever been con- 

 fined. Nor was its apparent tameness on these occasions especially remarkable, 

 for the window is draped with vines and its outer sill is so situated that the 

 birds and squirrels which are fed there regularly through the winter are unable 

 to see distinctly anything that happens within the room. 



It has been customary among ornithologists to consider Cardinals which 

 occur north of the usual range of the species as escaped cage birds, but I fail to 

 see why they should be so regarded unless they actually show marks of confine- 

 ment, which is not often the case. There is certainly no reason why they are 

 not as likely to reach Massachusetts by the aid of their wings alone as is the 

 Carolina Wren or the Blue-gray Gnatcatcher. As these two species are seldom 

 if ever caged, no one questions that their occasional visits to Massachusetts are 

 purely voluntary, although both birds have nearly the same general distribution 

 as the Cardinal while neither is better adapted by nature for extended flight. 

 Of course I do not mean to imply by this argument that all the Cardinals seen 

 in eastern Massachusetts are certainly wild birds. Mr. Batchelder writes me 

 that a specimen taken in the grounds surrounding his house on Kirkland Street, 

 Cambridge, "gave no hint of being a cage bird " until he "had it in hand," when 

 "examination left no doubt" of the fact. For this reason I omitted the record 

 from the list above given. It is quite possible that one or two of the Cardinals 

 which I have mentioned in this list were also escaped captives, but I believe that 

 most of them had never known a cage. 



