YOUNG CARDIXAL6 



CHAPTER XXI 



The Cardinal Grosbeak: Cardinalis Cardinally 



IN SMALL TREES AND BUSHES 



EARLY in iny field experience 

 with a camera, coming from the 

 east one day I found the body of a 

 Cardinal Grosbeak lying in the dust 

 at the entrance to the river bridge. 

 I picked him up to keep passing 

 horses from trampling his dead 

 body. As I drove home with him 

 lying on the seat bejside me my 

 feelings were outraged. The bright- 

 est bird of our Indiana ornithology, a fine musician, one fre- 

 quently to be seen in our fields and forests throughout the winter, 

 a seed-eater that seldom spoils fruit, enough of an insect exter- 

 minator to make his presence valuable anywhere there he lay 

 limp, his bright head never to lift again, his brave whistle 

 never to enrich summer music and impoverish all other winter 

 musicians and for what? Merely to prove that some fiend 

 with a gun could drop a shining mark. 



Always I have been the devout worshipper, the true lover 

 of this bird. By the time I reached the Cabin, "The Song of 

 the Cardinal " had been sung in my heart. I immediately started 

 gathering notes and searching for nests from which to make 

 illustrations for the protest I had planned. Never having seen a 



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