BIRDS OF MINNESOTA. 339 
_-They build a very concealed nest the last week in May— 
sometimes a little earlier—in anexcavation in the ground deep 
enough so that it is, when finished, about even with the sur- 
rounding surface and under cover of brushwood or in a thick 
tuft of grass. Itis bulky, consisting of shreds of bark and dry 
leaves, and is lined with fine grass. It lays about five eggs of 
a dingy white color, finely speckled all over with reddish-brown 
and lilac. 
SPECIFIC CHARACTERS. 
Upper parts generally, head and neck all around, and upper 
-part of the breast glossy black, abruptly defined against the 
pure white that extends to the anus, but is bounded on the 
sides and under the wings by light chestnut. Under coverts 
similar to sides, but paler. Edges of outer six primaries with 
white at the base, and on the middle of the outer web; inner 
two tertiaries also edged externally with white. Tail feathers 
black; outer web of the first, with the ends of the first to the 
third, white, decreasing from the exterior one. Iris red. 
Length, 8.75; wing, 3.75; tail 4.10. 
Habitat, eastern United States to the Missouri river. 
CARDINALIS CARDINALIS (L.). (593.) 
CARDINAL. 
I have on several occasions referred to this southern species 
as an accidental straggler into Minnesota. Since the last of 
my lists was published, I have had further evidence that it has 
been seen under circumstances and at such times in the year as 
to justify the recognition of being an occasional summer resi- 
dent in the southeastern portion of the State and northeast- 
wardly into the more central portions. Those places where it 
has been observed have been, so far as my sources of informa- 
tion extend, in the vicinity of clearings and improved farms in 
the larger bodies of deciduous timber. 
It has proved to be much less a strictly southern bird than 
the early writers supposed. A permanent resident there, it 
becomes decidedly migrant after reaching Virginia and Penn- 
sylvania, Ohio, Indiana and Southern Illinois. It has been ob- 
served as far north on the Atlantic coast as Nova Scotia, and 
now, aS above recorded, in Minnesota in the interior. Con- 
siderable numbers of them are permanent in Ohio, remaining 
in pairs in patches of woods near cornfields. When speak- 
ing of northern Ohio, Rev. J. H. Langille says of this species 
‘‘more common in winter than in summer.” 
