Cardinal

Gray sky and grayer woodland,
Night was nearly here.
Not a sound from frozen fairies,
Nor the step of deer.

Then — Redbirds from the dark
Entry of a tree!
Lit in hemlocks near me
And whistled merrily.

So it chanced that my first sight of this bird was at Queens, Long Island. Afterward I became better acquainted with the flame-colored, rich-voiced birds in their homeland but the memory of the first meeting never waned.

Their call notes (a rounded hue-hue-hue) are often given while the birds keep well hidden but usually they express themselves without concealment or hesitancy. Joy of living reaches such a point that males will flip up to a treetip and hip-hip-hip-hip-hoorip! with all the lung power they possess until the woods and fields resound with unrestrained hilarity. Even the cold-blooded clan who deem murder of hundreds necessary for stomach examination, tip the arrow of death less frequently. Since aforesaid examinations have proved the CARDINAL'S economic status it is to be hoped that the dictum will be accepted as final without the addition of more skins with properly-tagged stomachs!