24 EVERYDAY BIRDS 
the act of uttering it. The song is much in the 
manner of the robin’s, but less smooth and flow- 
ing. I have often thought, and sometimes said, 
that it is just such a song as the robin might 
give us if he were afflicted with what people call 
a“ hoarse cold.” The bird sings as if his whole 
heart were engaged, but at the same time in a 
noticeably broken and short-winded style. 
The oftener you hear him, the easier you will 
find it to distinguish him from a robin, although 
at first you may find yourself badly at a loss. 
A boy that can tell any one of twenty playmates 
by the tones of his voice alone will need nothing 
but practice and attention to do the same for a 
great part of the sixty or seventy kinds of com- 
mon birds living in the woods and fields about 
him. 
The tanager’s nest is built in a tree, on the 
flat of a level branch, so to speak, generally 
toward the end. Sometimes, at any rate, it is a 
surprisingly loose, carelessly constructed thing, 
through the bottom of which one can see the 
blue or bluish eggs while standing on the ground 
underneath. 
It must be plain to any one that the mother 
bird, in her dull greenish dress, is much less 
easily seen, and therefore much less in danger, as 
she sits brooding, than she would be if she wore 
