520 



GRANIVOROUS BIRDS. 



Sp. Charact. — Crested, scarlet, beneath brighter ; capistrum and 

 throat black ; bill coral red. — Female and young, drab ; beneath 

 reddish drab ; tip of the crest, wings, and tail, red ; capistrum 

 and chin cinereous. 



This splendid and not uncommon songster chiefly oc- 

 cupies the warmer and more temperate parts of the Uni- 

 ted States from New York to Florida, and a few strag- 

 glers even proceed as far to the north as Salem in Mas- 

 sachusetts. They also inhabit the Mexican provinces,* 

 and are met with south as far as Carthagena ; adventur- 

 ously crossing the intervening ocean, they are likewise 

 numerous in the little temperate Bermuda islands, but 

 do not apparently exist in any of the West Indies. As 

 might be supposed, from the range already stated, the 

 Red Bird is not uncommon throughout Louisiana, Mis- 

 souri, and Arkansas Territory. Most of those which 

 pass the summer in the cooler and Middle States retire 

 to the South at the commencement of winter ; though a 

 few linger in the sheltered swamps of Pennsylvania and 

 near the shores of the Delaware almost through the win- 

 ter. They also, at this season, probably assemble to- 

 wards the sea-coast from the west, in most of the South- 

 ern States, where roving and skulking timid families are 

 now seen flitting silently through thickets and swampy 

 woods alone, eager to glean a scanty subsistence, and 

 defend themselves from prowling enemies. At all times, 

 however, they appear to have a pedilection for watery 

 groves, and shaded running streams, abounding with ev- 

 ergreens and fragrant magnolias, in which they are so fre- 

 quent as to be almost concomitant with the scene. But 

 though they usually live only in families or pairs, and at 

 all times disperse into these selective groups, yet in severe 

 weather, at sunset, in South Carolina, I observed a flock 

 passing to a roost in a neighbouring swamp and bushy 



* In the month of March Mr. Bullock saw them round Vera Cruz. 



