CHAPTER XII 



FOUR NEIGHBORS DIVERSE 



(Tanagers, Waxivings, Shrikes, Vireos) 



NED came in one day in May, when the migration 

 was at its height, and reported that he had seen 

 a flock of male Scarlet Tanagers, six of them 

 together, along a roadside, and asked if it was not a 

 rare thing to find so many at once. I told him that it 

 was rather unusual, but that I had occasionally seen 

 such an occurrence at this time of year. They winter 

 in Central and South America, and the males start first 

 for the North, as is the case with many other birds, 

 trusting to the females to come along later and help 

 in setting up housekeeping. To see so many of these 

 black and scarlet birds at once would make one think 

 that they were more abundant than they are. But 

 most people think it quite an event when they see even 

 one. Though they are not rare, they are retiring birds 

 and keep mostly to the woods, so the average person 

 hardly ever sees them. 



I went on to tell Ned that, if we lived in tropical 

 America, the brilliant tanagers would not seem so 

 remarkable to us, for there they have great numbers 



191 



