72 
The Cardinal 
well-known notes of this favorite bird, assuring you of peace around, 
and of the full hour that still remains for you to pursue your walk in 
security! How often have I enjoyed this pleasure, and how often, in due 
humbleness of hope, do I trust that I may enjoy it again! 
This song is heard all winter in the more southerly States ; and at 
that season the Cardinals often collect in flocks which roam together 
through the swamps and thickets, or, when the weather is severe, come 
into a village or about a farm-house in search of the food then hard 
to obtain in snowy woods. 
This is one of the comparatively few native birds that may be 
induced to come to an artificial feeding-place near a house. Many per- 
sons attach shelves to their window-sills, where birds may be fed ; and 
the Cardinal may be taught that it is safe to come and get his share 
of the good things spread by the kindly hands of these bird-lovers. In the 
Central and Southern States this device is quite worth while, not only 
as a kindness to the birds, but as a means of acquaint- 
Ways y ance with them, as the birds may thus be brought so 
close that observers within the house have ample 
opportunities to see and study them at short range. 
Frank A. Brown describes in Bird-Lore for May-June, 1909, an 
instance of a Cardinal remaining at Ipswich, Massachusetts, through the 
winter. As the days became warmer the bird began to sing a little and 
make trips, lasting a day or two, away from the clump of spruce-trees 
which had been its winter headquarters; and a dish of food set out 
for it was regularly visited by the Cardinal three or four times a day. 
Visitors came from a distance of thirty or forty miles to see this bird. 
In addition to the great esthetic value of its song and plumage, the 
Cardinal has another important character which should endear it to the 
husbandman. Its natural food is varied, consisting of wild fruits, such 
as grapes, mulberries, cedar-berries, and the seeds of grasses and of 
many species of weeds ; but beetles, grasshoppers, crickets, flies, ants and 
their larvae, and other insects, mostly of injurious sorts, are eaten or are 
fed to its young. It is especially fond of rose-bugs. 
The Cardinal is, therefore, a bird of great interest and value from 
every point of view, and any person who makes its intimate acquaintance 
will form a life-long friendship. 
Classification and Distribution 
The Cardinal belongs to the Order Passeres, Suborder Oscines, and Family 
Fringillidoe. Its scientific name is Cardinalis cardinalis cardinalis. It ranges nor- 
mally east of the plains from southeastern South Dakota, northern Indiana, and 
the southern part of the Hudson Valley south to the Gulf States. The subspecies 
are the Arizona Cardinal (C. c. super bus) of southern Arizona and adjoining parts 
of Mexico; the San Lucas Cardinal (C. c. igneus ) of Lower California; the Gray- 
tailed Cardinal (C. c. canicaudus) of central and southwestern Texas; the Florida 
Cardinal ( C . c. doridanus) of Florida; and others dwelling in Mexico and Cen- 
tral America. 
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Audubon Societies, 1974 Broadway, New York City. Lists given on request. 
