162 HOMING WITH THE BIRDS 



The very cream of these illustrations is two 

 courting pictures, both of which were made near 

 a nest on which I had worked for several weeks. 

 At a time when the first of the young had flown, 

 while the last remained a day longer in the nest, 

 the old birds began courting, preliminary to build- 

 ing a new nest, the site which they had agreed 

 upon being only a few rods down the river from 

 the first nest in the same stretch of sumac thicket. 

 These were genuine courting pictui-es, in each in- 

 stance the birds having mated scarcely a second 

 after the picture was taken. I also count as very 

 rare the picture of this female at work on her sec- 

 ond nest, as, for reasons I have explained, it is al- 

 most impossible to photograph the birds in the act 

 of gathering material or weaving it into a nest 

 they are building. 



An vmusual picture, and one I have had few 

 other chances to secure, was the one of this series 

 in which the male bird carried the female a morsel 

 of food — I could not see what, but a seed or some- 

 thing hard — on which she bit for several seconds 

 before she swallowed it. The picture was snapped 

 while the hen was still nibbling the food. A few 

 inches away, the male, after delivering the food, 

 ran his beak down the length of her wing next 

 him in what seemed to be a caress; then, with an 

 expression of extreme solicitude on his face, 

 watched her an instant before he took wing. I 

 also made three pictures of this male cardinal 



