Length 4¾ inches, extent of wings 12; bill along the back 2⁄12, along the edge 7⁄12; tarsus 5⁄12.
Adult Female. Plate CLVIII. Fig. 2.
The Female is similar to the male.
Two views of the nest are also given in the plate.
[THE CARDINAL GROSBEAK].
Fringilla cardinalis, Bonap.
PLATE CLIX. Male and Female.
In richness of plumage, elegance of motion, and strength of song, this species surpasses all its kindred in the United States. It is known by the names of Red Bird, Virginia Nightingale, Cardinal Bird, and that at the head of the present article. It is very abundant in all our Southern States, as well as in the peninsula of the Floridas. In the western country a great number are found as far up on the Ohio as the city of Cincinnati, and they extend to considerable distances into Indiana, Illinois and Missouri. They are found in the maritime districts of Pennsylvania and New Jersey, where they breed, and where a few remain the whole year; some are also seen in the State of New York, and now and then a straggler proceeds into Massachusetts; but farther eastward this species has never been observed.
This fine songster relishes the interior of the forest, and the heart of the deepest cane-brakes or retired swamps, as well as the neighbourhood of cities. It is constantly found in our fields, orchards and gardens; nay, it often enters the very streets of our southern towns and villages to breed; and it is rare that one goes into a planter's yard without observing the Red Bird skipping about the trees or on the turf beneath them. Go where it may, it is always welcome, and every where a favourite, so rich is its song, and so brilliant its plumage.
The Cardinal Bird breeds in the Floridas. In the beginning of March I found them already paired in that country, and on the 8th of February near General Hernandez's. In the neighbourhood of Charleston, as well as in Louisiana, they are nearly a month later, and much the same lapse of time takes place again before they form a nest in the State of New Jersey or in that of Kentucky.
The nest is placed, apparently without much consideration, in some low briar, bush, or tree, often near the fence, the middle of a field, or the interior of a thicket, not far from a cooling stream, to which they are fond of resorting, for the purpose of drinking and bathing. Sometimes you find it placed close to the planter's house or in his garden, a few yards from that of the Mocking Bird or the Thrasher. It is composed of dry leaves and twigs, together with a large proportion of dry grass and slips of grape-vines, and is finished within with bent-grass, wrought in a circular form. The eggs are from four to six, of a dull white colour, marked all over with touches of olive-brown.