The Cardinal 



ii 



Parker, being displeased that so. beautiful a singer shouldvbe 

 named for the shape of his beak, writes: 



"When golden pippin trees are white 



Some mellow, liquid notes are heard, 

 That mingle in one brief delight 



The thought of man, the soul of bird. 

 Sing on my redbird! strains that speak 



A tenderer hope than words can tell; 

 The boor who named thee for thy beak 



Had never felt the witching spell 

 Of wild bird music, such as cleaves 



The crust of pride, and wafts the soul 

 From hate that blinds, and care that grieves 



To love taught art's divinest goal." 



As a rule cardinals begin to sing in February and they 

 continue singing throughout the spring, summer and autumn. 

 I was at Buzzard's Roost January 1, 1905. It was a beautiful 

 day and so warm that the bees were in flight and the cardinals 

 were singing most beautifully. I spent the last half of August, 

 1904, there as a vacation. I then noticed that the cardinals were 

 singing more than any of the other birds. August 17, I made 

 this entry in my note book : "The cardinal was the first bird to 

 sing this morning and at 6:30, as the almost blood-red sun 

 sank behind the trees, I heard him singing within a few hun- 

 dred feet of where I first saw him January 4, 1898." Both male 

 and female sing; the female sings in an undertone and more 

 softly. In Harper's Magazine for March, 1906, is a most charm- 

 ing article by Jennie Brooks in which she tells of the ways of 

 two cardinals which nested in the yard about her home for 

 several years in succession. In speaking of the ways of the 

 male she says, "This bird had and has the most astonishing 

 voice I ever heard, and it did seem that summer as if even 

 the birds themselves stopped to listen when he sang at twi- 

 light. One by one their voices dropped away as, just when the 

 stars came twinkling out each evening he flew to the highest 

 tree-top in our garden and poured out his heavenly notes. The 

 purity of its tone, and his wonderful range and flexibility of 

 voice I have never heard equalled by any bird. The vesper 

 song, even, did not satisfy his soul, and often when a light 



