262 KNOWING BIRDS THROUGH STORIES 



were a summer tanager, a bird of which I had heard 

 much but had never seen, it flew in front of one of the 

 hives, caught a bee and again lighted on its twig. In a 

 moment it repeated this maneuver and within a few min- 

 utes it caught fifteen or twenty bees, quite enough I should 

 think for a good meal for any bird of its size. It had 

 hardly left before its mate, a beautiful reddish brown 

 bird, took its place and remained until she had satisfied 

 her appetite on bees. 



This was a surprize to both of us because, while we 

 knew that these birds feed on insects, we had never known 

 that they catch bees. We continued to watch the bees 

 from time to time during the day and there was a summer 

 tanager there almost half the time. Of course this ex- 

 plained at once why the bees were not doing well. 



We did not know how many birds were feeding there, but 

 it was evident that there were more than two, for no two 

 birds could possibly eat so many bees as we saw caught that 

 day. After watching them for a week, my friend, himself 

 something of a naturalist and a great lover of birds, de- 

 <;ided he would have to do a distasteful thing in self -pro- 

 tection, so he took his gun and began shooting tanagers. 

 The first day, he killed eight of these birds feeding on his 

 bees. Within a few days the bees began to grow strong, 

 showing that this had been their only trouble; and as he 

 had killed all the summer tanagers near by, he had no 

 more trouble. 



Lest my readers should think this habit of catching 

 bees is common to these birds I wish to say that the event 

 occurred more than twelve years ago and I have kept 

 bees ever since and so has my friend. Summer tanagers 

 are so numerous that seldom a day passes without seeing 



