CARDINAL. 
REDBIRD. 
CARDINALIS CARDINALIS. 
Cuar. Head with conspicuous crest. Male: above, bright vermi- 
lion, shaded with gray on the back; beneath, paler; forehead and throat 
black. Female: above, olive gray; beneath, buffy. Young similar to 
female, but duller. Length about 8 to 8% inches. 
Nest. In a variety of situations, most frequently amid a thicket of 
brambles or in a low tree; loosely made of twigs, strips of grape-vine, 
dry grass, weed-stems, lined with fine grass or roots, sometimes with 
hair. 
Eggs. 3-5; dull white or tinged with blue, green, or buff; spotted 
with reddish brown and lilac; 1.00 X 0.75. 
These splendid and not uncommon songsters chiefly reside 
in the warmer and more temperate parts of the United States 
from New York to Florida, and a few stragglers even proceed 
as far to the north as Salem in Massachusetts. They also 
inhabit the Mexican provinces, and are met with south as far 
as Carthagena ; adventurously crossing the intervening ocean, 
they are likewise numerous in the little temperate Bermuda 
islands, but do not apparently exist in any of the West Indies. 
As might be supposed, from the range already stated, the Red- 
birds are not uncommon throughout Louisiana, Missouri, and 
Arkansas Territory. Most of those which pass the summer in 
