Godey's Lady's Book

GODEY'S LADY'S BOOK
Philadelphia, March 1850

THE CEDAR BIRD.

This pretty bird is found in all parts of North America, from Canada to Mexico. He passes by different names in different localities. Cedar bird and cherry bird are its most common designations. In some parts of New England, it is called the Canada Robin, and by the French Canadians it is fancifully named Recollet, from the color of its crest resembling that of the hood of this religious order. It has a soft, silky plumage, a gentle, sociable disposition, and, according to Mr. Nuttall, an inextinguishable love of freedom. When curator of the Botanical Garden at Cambridge, this fine observer of nature had s young cedar bird thrown upon his protection, by its accidentally falling out of the nest in a hemlock tree in the garden. He says –

" I soon found my interesting protege impatient of the cage, and extremely voracious, gorging himself to the very mouth with the soft fruits on which he was often fed. The throat, in fact, like a craw, admits of distension, and the contents are only gradually passed off' into the stomach. I now suffered the bird to fly at large, and for several days he descended from the trees, in which he perched, to my arm, for food; but, the moment he was satisfied, he avoided the cage, and appeared by his restlessness unable to survive the loss of liberty. He now came seldomer to me, and finally joined the lisping muster-cry of tze tze tze, and was enticed away, after two or three attempts, by his more attractive and suitable associates. When young, nature provided him with a loud, impatient voice, and tedid, tedid, kai-te-did (often also the clamorous cry of the young Baltimore), was his deafening and almost incessant cry for food. Another young bird of the first brood, probably neglected, cried so loud and plaintively to a male Baltimore bird in the same tree, that he commenced feeding it. Mr. Winship, of Brighton, informs me, that one of the young cedar birds which frequented the front of his house in quest of honeysuckle berries, at length, on receiving food (probably also abandoned by his roving parents), threw himself wholly on his protection. At large, day and night, he still regularly attended the dessert of the dinner-table for his portion of fruit, and remained steadfast in his attachment to Mr. W. till killed by accident; being unfortunately trodden under foot."

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