A bird's habitat is defined as the physiognomy of vegetational and other cover-forms present in the area that it occupies. Habitats of the cardinal, Richmondena cardinalis, were compared near the center of its range in western Tennessee and at the periphery in southern Ontario.Population density in Tennessee was 0.74 males per hectare (30 per 100 acres), and in Ontario was 0.012 per hectare (0.48 per 100 acres). In Tennessee, cardinals occupied every available type of cover, suggesting plasticity of response to habitat; in Ontario, they were most common in the most abundant cover, suggesting little or no selection.Home ranges were smaller in the central population, 1.18 vs. 18.81 ha (2.91 vs. 46.48 acres). Home ranges in both areas contained the same proportion of woody cover, but woody "edge" was proportionately greater in the central population. Most cover-forms and substrates in home ranges occurred with equal frequencies in the two regions; differences could be reasonably explained in terms of geographic dissimilarity rather than by differential preferences. Peripheral home ranges contained much coniferous foliage, so that birds were not selecting all-broadleaved areas. This suggests that coniferous foliage may be insufficient to limit the species in the north.It is suggested that, in the central area, greatest density is reached in non-preferred habitats such as hedgerows because distance can be easily maintained between neighbors.