EASTERN SUMMER TANAGER 503 



typical song went as follows: hee para vee-er chewit terwee hee para 

 vee-er." 



A. F. Skutch tells me that the summer tanager "is by no means a 

 silent bird during its sojourn between the Tropics. It often utters 

 its somewhat rattling call-note, chicky-tucky-tuck. Often I have 

 heard the familiar voice floating down from the tops of the forest 

 trees, where intervening masses of foliage hid from my view the 

 brilliant red form. But the summer tanager sings far less in its 

 winter home than many another bird. Early one October, in southern 

 Costa Rica, I found a newly arrived male who sang in a loud voice 

 for several minutes." On April 24 and 25, 1932, he heard one sing a 

 sweet song; this was the only one he ever heard sing in the Tropics in 

 the spring. 



Enemies.— Friedmann (1929) lists the summer tanager as "an 

 uncommon host" of the cowbirds; he found five records of such 

 parasitism, involving two races of Molothrus ater and both races of 

 Piranga rubra. 



Harold S. Peters (1936) records one louse and one mite as external 

 parasites on this tanager. 



Fall. — Francis M. Weston writes to me of the migration near 

 Pensacola, Fla.: "Migration commences early and is, I believe, a 

 reversal of the spring route. As early as the last week of August, 

 tanagers appear commonly in the coastwise woods, several miles 

 south of the nearest known nesting areas, and from then until mid- 

 October a few birds can always be found. Stormy spells in September 

 halt flights of southbound migrants of many species that, in good 

 weather, presumably pass overhead undetected, and summer tanagers 

 are always present in these gatherings. Sometimes, particularly 

 when a succession of bad days, such as was experienced here from 

 September 18 to 20, 1937, dams up several days flights, tanagers are 

 as abundant as in spring. In the fall of 1925, the only year I was 

 able to get satisfactory returns from the Pensacola Lighthouse (a 

 first-class light almost on the Gulf beach) a single tanager was picked 

 up among a host of casualties of the night of October 26-27." 



The migrating tanagers referred to above would probably cross the 

 Gulf of Mexico to Central America. Others that breed in Florida 

 apparently migrate southward through Cuba to Yucatan, and then 

 on to their winter homes in Central and South America. 



Winter. — Alexander F. Skutch contributes the following account: 

 "My earliest record of the arrival of the summer tanager in Central 

 America was made in the Coast Rican highlands on September 18, 

 1935, but this is an exceptionally early date, and the species is rarely 

 met before October, when it begins to become abundant. Rapidly 

 spreading over most of Central America, it is one of the common 



380928— 5T 33 



