474 U. S. NATIONAL MUSEUM BULLETIN 211 



from side to side while scanning the air. No attempt made by it 

 was unsuccessful." 



Mrs. Wheelock (1904) tells of young tanagers fly-catching among 

 the pines late in August: "They were following the flycatcher fashion 

 of catching insects on the wing, beginning when the sun touched the 

 tops of the trees and moving downward as the day advanced and the 

 insect life nearer the ground awoke to activity. In like manner they 

 retreated to the tree tops as the shadows fell in the afternoon." 



Economic status. — The damage done to the ripening cherries in 

 California during the spring migration of these tanagers apparently 

 can be quite serious at times, but this does not occur every spring 

 and then only when the migration which often follows the foothills 

 of the mountain ranges far away from the large fruit orchards, is 

 unusually heavy. This tanager destroys many injurious insects, 

 and a careful study of its food will show that it is about 80 percent 

 beneficial and probably not over 20 percent harmful. 



Behavior. — As evidence that the western tanager is not too shy, I 

 quote the following from some notes sent to me by A. Dawes Du 

 Bois: "Flathead County, Mont., July 24, 1914: There was quite 

 an assemblage of birds at the spring this morning, waiting their turns 

 for a bath. I stood on the brink of the spring with one foot braced 

 up the slope. A young Louisiana tanager bathed at my feet. Its 

 mother came, with food in her bill, to a branch less than 3 feet from 

 my head, but, becoming suspicious, did not feed. Instead, she ut- 

 tered signal notes, addressed no doubt to the young one. It paid 

 little heed, looked me over and bathed again; then sat on a low 

 branch close to my feet and preened its feathers. Father tanager 

 came — gorgeous in his coat of many colors — and, as I stood like a 

 statue, he hopped on the ground beneath me, between my feet, but 

 did not go in for a bath." 



Barnes (MS) says: "The flight is in an unwavering line with fairly 

 rapid wing beats." 



Voice. — Aretas A. Saunders writes to me: "In my experience with 

 this species in Montana, the song of this bird is very similar to that 

 of the scarlet tanager. Perhaps, if I had made records at that time, 

 I would have found a definite difference, but the general sound of 

 the song certainly is very similar, if not identical." 



My impression of the song of the western tanager, as I heard it in 

 British Columbia in 1911, was that it resembled the robinlike song 

 of the scarlet tanager. Rathbun says in his notes: "The tanager 

 seems to chant its song. Some of its notes are a reminder of certain 

 of the robin's, but have roughness lacking in the former. But its 

 song is very pleasing, carrying a suggestion of the wildness and free- 



