EASTERN SUMMER TANAGER 501 



variety of these insects, with nests of the most diverse forms. The 

 outer walls and rafters of my house are a veritable museum of wasps' 

 nests, and the wintering summer tanagers often come to feast upon 

 the young brood. But they are excessively shy while close to the 

 house, and it is difficult to watch them at this activity. Sometimes, 

 while occupied indoors, I have heard a scratching on the outer walls, 

 and gone to the window only to see a summer tanager fly away from a 

 wasps' nest. I actually watched the tanagers plunder nests of three 

 different kinds, on the house or in the surrounding trees; but more 

 often I have found evidence of their visits in the form of nests torn 

 open. * * * 



"In addition to insect food of varied kinds, the summer tanagers 

 eat a certain amount of fruit. They come to my feeding table to share 

 the bananas and plantains with eight non-migratory species of the 

 family." 



Paul H. Oehser has sent me the following extract from a paper by 

 Phil Rau (1941), of Kirkwood, Mo. 



Some years ago I recorded that birds sometimes pierce the paper nests of 

 Polistes pallipes and feed on the larvae; on one particular occasion fifty per cent 

 of the small newly-founded nests of this species were destroyed by an unknown 

 species of bird (Can. Ent., 62: 144, 1930). More direct evidence, however, was 

 obtained by Dr. E. S. Anderson who informed me that for two weeks during 1939, 

 he observed a male Summer Tanager (Piranga rubra rubra) remove the larvae of 

 Polistes pallipes and P. variatus from time to time from nests under the eaves of 

 his barn at Gray's Summit, Missouri. These the bird carried to its } r oung in a 

 nest in a nearby tree. 



One sometimes finds Polistes' nests with whole series of cells destroyed, and at 

 first we thought that this was done by the wasps themselves, who removed the 

 cells to obtain building material for new nests, or, if it was a 'live' nest, for cells 

 on other parts of the same nest. In this I find I was mistaken; the damaged 

 condition, when it appears, is quite certainly done by birds when removing the 

 larvae from the nests. Of the twelve species of Polistes wasps studied by me in 

 Missouri, Panama, and Mexico, I have never found any evidence of wasps 

 obtaining building material from old nests, or from portions of 'live' nests. 



J. I. Hamaher (1936) thus describes the tanager's method of attack 

 on a wasps' nest: 



The nest of this common black and white paper nest wasp was in a pine tree 

 near the kitchen window from which I watched the performance for about half an 

 hour. When I first noted some unusual activity the bird was pecking at something 

 which he held. Then perching on a twig about three feet from the wasp nest, he 

 sat for a moment facing the nest. I noted then that about a dozen wasps were 

 flying about the nest in an excited manner. The bird then made a dive toward 

 the swarm, seized a wasp and flew off to a resting place nearby. I was at first in 

 doubt whether he was eating the wasps or merely killing them. I afterward found 

 several dead wasps beneath the tree on the ground. After several times repeating 

 the attack the wasps all suddenly disappeared whereupon the Tanager alighted on 

 the nest and rapidly tore the upper protecting layers away and attacked the comb. 



