FAMILY Fringillid&. 



Mr. Eugene P. Bicknell apparently has caught exactly the 

 spirit of the music, for he writes: "A bird's song! An 

 emotional outburst rising full-toned and clear, passing all 

 too quickly to a closing cadence which seems to linger in 

 the silent air." That "closing cadence" is precisely what 

 the rallentando represents. Then Mr. Bicknell continues, 

 unconsciously indicating the Cantabile, "it breaks forth 

 as if inspired from pure joy in the awakened season, though 

 with some vague undertone scarcely of sadness, rather of 

 some lower tone of joy." No small bird possesses the 

 equal of the Fox Sparrow's rich voice, and none other, 

 great or small, seems to take life more happily and con- 

 tentedly ; yet that voice sings mostly to the dreary wilder- 

 ness in the far North, and its cheery possessor literally 

 grubs for his living with both feet at once. Watch him in 

 early March as he scratches among the dead leaves under 

 the shrubbery and it becomes evident that he can outdo 

 the old hen at her own game! 



Cardinal The Cardinal ranges throughout the 



C C ardinaiis eastern United States from Iowa and south- 

 L 8 25 inches ern New York to the Gulf coast. Mr. Elon 

 Permanent Howard Eaton considers this distinctively 

 resident South southern bird commonest in New York in the 

 extreme southeastern counties west of the Hudson River 

 notably Rockland County. It is certainly rare or absent in 

 all other parts of the State. A beautiful singer, it is often 

 caught and reared in captivity and the song in such in- 

 stances is not materially different from that of the bird in 

 freedom.* The Cardinal's colors are a bright scarlet lake 

 tone of red much colder than the scarlet Tanager's intense 

 hue; the plumage of the upper parts is tinged with gray, 

 bill dull red, the region between it and the eye, and the 

 throat for quite a distance down, black; the pronounced 

 crest, wings, tail, and under parts a brighter red. Female 

 a much duller and browner toned red. Nest, built of twigs, 



*Of course the close association of caged young birds means the 

 inevitable exercise of their imitative faculty, and inherited forms 

 of song are subject to great variation one way or another; but I 

 must emphatically state that the mechanical rhythm of a particu- 

 lar species is seldom if ever liable to interference by some other 

 species. 



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