File:News from the birds (1898) (14770431843).jpg

Identifier: newsfrombirds00key (find matches)
Title: News from the birds
Year: 1898 (1890s)
Authors: Keyser, Leander Sylvester, 1856-
Subjects: Birds
Publisher: New York, D. Appleton and company
Contributing Library: The Library of Congress
Digitizing Sponsor: The Library of Congress

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visit there in the spring of 1894.True, there were no bushy hillsides in that re-gion, but in the quivering swamps, covered withthickly matted bushes, these birds held theirsong carnivals, and flitted about amid the foli-age like living studies in red. It may havebeen mere fancy, but it seemed to me that Inever saw cardinals so brilliant of plumage aswere the cardinals of the Louisiana swamps. The spring of 1897 found me pursuing mybusy avocation in southern Mississippi, ram-bling along the Gulf coast intent on the studyof avian folk. On the 27th of April a cardi-nals nest containing three callow bantlings wasfound, and the next day another with threeeggs. These nests were carefully concealed inthe densest part of a green copse. Thus it willbe seen that the cardinals breed in the Southas well as in the North. It would be interest-ing to know whether a pair ever raise a familyon the Gulf coast in the early spring, and thenfind some more northern summer home in which A MERRY PIPER. 211
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Cardinal grossbeak. to rear another brood. Perhaps some enterpris-ing bird student will some day be able to settlethat point, and thus add something new to ourknowledge of birds. Thus it will be seen that the cardinals arequite widely distributed. They are also to befound in Florida, for a friend told me of theirpresence there, and, besides, Bradford Torreyin his pleasant book, A Florida Sketchbook, 212 NEWS FROM THE BIRDS. speaks of observing them in that State. It israther odd that some individuals should livein the South all the year round, while othersremain both summer and winter in the North,and others still migrate from one latitude toanother, according to the season. You can notexplain what it is that causes this difference,nor can any one; it is simply the natural dis-position of some to remain at one place and ofothers to travel and see the world. We findthe same difference in people, some of whomare proverbial globe trotters, while othersare genuine home bodies by natural p

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