Page:How to Have Bird Neighbors.pdf/121

 acted so selfishly the day before. I never saw him peck at her again.

Every stormy day that winter the cardinals came to our porch at evening. They became so confiding after a week or so that he usually announced their arrival with a few low hissing notes, something like "Tset, tset, tset!" Sometimes he would perch on the upper shelf, sometimes on the lower. Mrs. Cardinal was a peace-loving bird. She always came last, and took the empty shelf. Usually he would change so as to sit beside her. They were always gone in the morning, no matter how early I came out; and when they came in the evening it was usually dusk. So I never got a picture of my cardinals on the shelves.

Mr. Cardinal finally got so he sometimes came to the lunch on the snow; but his favorite feedery was a tray in my neighbor's yard, which I kept supplied with shelled peanuts and shelled corn. The English sparrows could not manage these large kernels, so the cardinals had this feedery to themselves. This may be the reason why they preferred it to the one on the ground.

But the cardinals must have procured much of their food elsewhere, for they came only about once in three or four hours to get a dainty at the tray. Strange to say they never came together. Always he came first and ate a while, then sometimes she would come, too. It seemed as if she let him come