WHAT I HAVE DONE WITH BIRDS 



the work and the others used did not look so unlike him as to at- 

 tract the attention of any one reading for the story. 



As described in the book, this bird really was "the biggest, 

 reddest Redbird" ever seen in these parts. His home, in a thicket 

 of sumac, on the bank of the Wabash River, was on the Brown 

 farm northeast of the village of Ceylon. Cultivated fields came 

 close to the bank, inclosed by an old snake-fence; a few feet of 

 grassy ground was covered by sumac, wild plum, red haw, thorn, 

 spice brush, papaw and vines of every native variety; then the 

 embankment sloped sharply down to the water which sparkled 

 over clean pebbly shoals. For a mercy we were undisturbed. The 

 location was farther both from my home village and from Ceylon 

 than boys playing at the river cared to walk; the water here was 

 very shallow, so that bathing and fishing were impossible, and I 

 never left my carriage anywhere near the nest, but approached it 

 always from the river, so that workers in the field would not see 

 me and investigate. 



He was not only the biggest and reddest, but his beard 

 was the blackest and the longest, witness the reproductions, 

 his crest flared the highest, his song was the mellowest and he was 

 the tamest of all my Cardinal birds. It would interest no one to 

 know how many plates I spoiled on him; in three instances I 

 caught him squarely, and at his level best, and that paid for all 

 failure, time and expense. 



These pictures were secured by cutting off a living limb on 

 which he was accustomed to alight in a pause before he reached his 

 nest and substituting a dead branch in its place. He never seemed 

 to know the difference and soon it became a favorite resort with 

 him. He liked to sit there and be sprinkled during a light shower. 



