198 CITIZEN BIRD 



it for my collection, because it came from the very 

 region where this kind of Tanager was discovered 

 almost a hundred years ago." 



" I thought you said it was a Louisiana Tanager," 

 said Rap and Nat, almost in the same breath. 



" So it is, boys ; but it does not live in the State of 

 Louisiana you are thinking about, down by the mouth 

 of the Mississippi River. I shall have to explain how 

 it got its name by giving you a little lesson in the his- 

 tory and geography of our country. A great many 

 years ago there Avas a King of France called Louis the 

 Fourteenth, and during his reign all the western parts 

 of America that the French had discovered or acquired 

 any claim to were named Louisiana in his honor by one 

 of the missionaries who came over to convert the Ind- 

 ians to Christianity. After a good many years more, 

 about the beginning of this century, President Jeffer- 

 son bought all this immense country from Napoleon 

 Bonaparte, and that made it a part of the United 

 States — every part of them that is now ours from the 

 Mississippi River to the Pacific Ocean, except some 

 that we afterward took from Mexico. President Jef- 

 ferson was a very wise man, and as soon as he had 

 bought all this land he wanted to know about it. So 

 he sent an expedition to explore it, under two brave 

 captains named Lewis and Clark. They were gone 

 almost three years ; and one day, — I remember now, it 

 was the sixth of June, 1806, — when they were camping 

 in what is now Idaho, near the border of Oregon, they 

 found this lovely bird, and wrote a description of it 

 in their note-books — just as you did with your Scarlet 

 Tanager, Dodo, only theirs was the first one anybody 



