FRIENDS IN FEATHERS 



duce it so that students can identify a similar nest from it. Bend 

 the limb lower so that the lining will show, as well as outside 

 material; then with a little wooden paddle turn at least one egg 

 so that the shape and markings are distinct. This can not 

 possibly hurt the egg and when the bird returns to brood she 

 will replace it to suit herself. 



If you find statements in the writings of a natural-history 

 photographer that you can not corroborate in the works of your 

 favourite ornithologist, be reasonable. \Yho is more likely to 

 know? The one who tries to cover the habits and dispositions of 

 the birds of a continent in the lifetime of one person, or the one 

 who, in the hope of picturing one bird, lies hidden by the day 

 watching a nest? Sometimes a series of one bird covers many 

 days, sometimes weeks, as the Kingfisher; sometimes months, 

 as the Vulture; and sometimes years, as did the Cardinals of this 

 book. Does it not stand to reason, that in such intimacy with a 

 few species, much can be learned of them that is new? 



All that my best authority on our native birds can say of 

 the eggs of a Quail is that they are "roundish." He hesitates 

 over the assertion that Cardinals eat insects, and states for a 

 fact that they brood but once a season. No bird is so completely 

 a seed- or insect-eater that it does not change its diet. Surely 

 the Canaries of your cages are seed -eaters, yet every Canary lover 

 knows that if the bird's diet is not varied with lettuce, apple, egg 

 and a bit of raw beefsteak occasionally, it will pull out its feathers 

 and nibble the ends of them for a taste of meat. Chickens will do 

 the same thing. 



Certainly Cardinals eat insects, very freely. The one lure 

 effective above all others in coaxing a Cardinal before a lens was 

 fresh, bright red, scraped beefsteak. Nine times out of ten this 

 bird went where I wanted him when a dead limb set with raw 

 meat was introduced into his surroundings. He would venture 



14 



