VI 
THE SCARLET TANAGER 
WueEn I began to learn the birds, I was living 
in a large city. One of the first things I did, 
after buying a book, was to visit a cabinet of 
mounted specimens —“ stuffed birds,” as we 
often call them. Such a wonderful and confus- 
ing variety as there was to my ignorant eyes! 
Among them I remarked especially a gorgeous 
scarlet creature with black wings and a black tail. 
It was labeled the scarlet tanager. So far as I 
was concerned, it could not have looked more 
foreign if it had come from Borneo. My book 
told me that it was common in Massachusetts. It 
might be, I thought, but I had never seen it 
there. And a bird so splendid as that! Bright 
enough to set the woods on fire! How could I 
have missed it ? 
Well, there came a Saturday, with its half- 
holiday for clerks, and 1 went-into the country, 
where I betook myself to the woods of my native 
village, the woods wherein I had rambled all the 
years of my boyhood. And that afternoon, be- 
