THE RED-CRESTED CARDINAL. 77 



of a little tree, principally of leaves and grasses, and it contained three 

 white eggs, covered with little green spots, more dense at the blunt 

 end. The first young ones, hatched on the i5th July, after fifteen 

 days incubation, the old bird permitted to starve ; and only when 

 chopped meat, insects, worms and the like had been given for feeding 

 them, did they successfully bring up their second brood in August. 

 He observed that the young birds did not acquire the perfectly beautiful 

 colouring of plumage before the third year." 



Further on Dr. Russ quotes an interesting account of the breeding 

 of Red-crested Cardinals in the Zoological Gardens of Frankfort-on- 

 Maine. It appears' that a flat basket-nest was selected by the old birds 

 for a building site ; it was placed in a niche in the wall with a ledge 

 eight centimetres high in front, and various branches served as perches. 

 Of four similar nests they selected one which stood in the southern 

 angle of the cage, and was most sheltered from the weather. Both sexes 

 built together. A second hen in the aviary hung about in the vicinity 

 of the nest, but was apparently entirely ignored, and only driven away 

 if it approached too closely. Whereas, on the i8th April, the nest was 

 completed, but without any lining, the female laid on the igih and 2ist, 

 and from the morning of the 23rd began to sit steadily ; it was daily 

 many times relieved by the male. On the 5th May, young ones were 

 found in the nest, which both parents fed diligently, at first chiefly with 

 yolk of egg, chopped meat, ants' eggs and cut up dew-worms. On 

 the loth May the heads of two young ones were already visible above 

 the edge of the nest, and shouted almost incessantly for food. The 

 first young one came fluttering out of the nest on the morning of the 

 1 7th, and clambered about without assistance on a tree, which it did 

 not leave, but even passed the night on ; whereas the second remained 

 sitting on the edge of the nest and only flew out on the day following. 

 The old male fed these young ones up to the 3rd June : subsequently 

 one of them assisted its parents in feeding a young one in the second 

 nest ; and a hen Green Cardinal, which had failed in her own broods, 

 helped to bring up two young ones in the third nest. 



Illustration from specimens in the author's possession. 



