122 IN THE MIDDLE COUNTRY. 



birds became so accustomed to their human ob- 

 servers that they paid no attention to them. 



The female cardinal is so dainty in looks and 

 manner, so delicate in all her ways, that one 

 naturally expects her to build at least a neat 

 and comely nest, and I was surprised to see a 

 rough-looking affair, similar to the one already 

 mentioned. This might be, in her case, because 

 it was the third nest she had built that sum- 

 mer. One had been used for the first brood. 

 The second had been seized and appropriated 

 to their own use by another pair of birds. (As 

 this was told me, and I cannot vouch for it, I 

 shall not name the alleged thief.) This, the 

 third, was made of twigs and fibres of bark, 

 or what looked like that, and was strongly 

 stayed to the rose stems, the largest of which 

 was not bigger than my little finger, and most 

 of them much smaller. 



On my second visit I was invited into the 

 kitchen to see the family in the rosebush. It 

 appeared that this was " coming-off " day, and 

 one little cardinal had already taken his fate in 

 his hands when I arrived, soon after breakfast. 

 He had progressed on the journey of life about 

 one foot ; and a mere dot of a fellow he looked 

 beside his parents, with a downy fuzz on his 

 head, which surrounded it like a halo, and no 

 sign of a crest. The three nestlings still at 



