Page:How to Have Bird Neighbors.pdf/124

 Another was just plain:

t     t"       i      i     o      o   h      h "W      w

sung from three to ten times in succession. Sometimes, when Mrs. Cardinal did not respond promptly, he "chuk"-ed, himself, in imitation of her notes.

In late August I found the cardinals' deserted nest in an evergreen on the ravine's edge. It was made almost entirely of this stringy wood-fiber, lined with fine rootlets, and interwoven with many leaves.

I never saw but two baby cardinals of this brood. They were brownish birds, and they had the red bill of the parents.

After August I saw nothing more of their mother. I have suspected that a boy down the street was to blame; his favorite plaything was an air-gun, and he had been caught shooting a brown thrasher shortly before. It seems to me the laws protecting song-birds ought to be taught in every school, and that children should be obliged to know that shooting song-birds or their young, or spoiling or stealing their eggs or nest, is a crime punishable by fine or imprisonment, or both.

Father Cardinal was seen tending the young faithfully until October. Then he suddenly turned on them. Whenever they followed him after that he drove them from him. The young found peanuts