438 NORTH AMERICAN BIRDS. 



Habits. Tliis bird is one of the many instances in which Wilson has been 

 unfortunate in bestowing upon his new species a geographical name not 

 appropriate at the present time. We have no evidence that this bird, called 

 the Louisiana Tanager, is ever found within the modern limits of that State, 

 although it occurs from the Great Plains to the Pacific, and from Fort Liard, 

 in the northern Ptocky Mountains, to Mexico. 



It was first met with by Lewis and Clark's party, on the Upper Missouri, 

 a region then known as Louisiana Territory. They were said to inhabit the 

 extensive plains in what w^as then called Missouri Territory, building their 

 nests in low bushes, and even among the grass, and deligliting in the various 

 kinds of berries with which those fertile prairies were said to abound. 



Mr. Nuttall, who met with these birds in his Western excursions, describes 

 them as continually flitting over those vast-downs, occasionally alighting on 

 the stems of some tall weed, or the bushes bordering the streams. Their 

 habits are very terrestrial, and from this he infers that they derive their 

 food from the insects they find near the ground, as well as from the seeds of 

 the herbage in which they chiefly dwell. He found them a common and 

 numerous species, remaining in tlie country west of the Mississippi until the 

 approach of October. In his first observations of them he states that though 

 he had seen many of these birds, yet he liad no recollection of hearing them 

 utter any modulated or musical sounds. They appeared to him shy, flitting, 

 and almost silent. 



He first observed these birds in a thick belt of wood near Laramie's Fork 

 of the Platte, at a considerable distance east of the P)lack Hills. He after- 

 wards found them very abundant, in the spring, in the forests of the Colum- 

 bia, below Fort Vancouver. In tliese latter observations he modified his 

 views as to their song, and states that he could frequently trace them by 

 their notes, which are a loud, short, and slow, but pleasing warble, not very 

 unlike that of the common llobin, delivered from the tops of lofty fir-trees. 

 Their music continues, at short intervals, during the forenoon, and while 

 they are busily engagetl in searching for larvas and coleopterous insects, on 

 the small branches of the trees. 



Dr. Suckley found this Tanager quite abundant at certain seasons in the 

 vicinity of Fort Steilacoom. In one year a very limited number were seen ; 

 in another they were very abundant. From frequent opportunities to exam- 

 ine and to study their habits, he was inclined to discredit the statement of 

 JSTuttall that they descend to low bushes, the reverse being the rule. He 

 found it very difficult to meet with any sufficiently low down in the trees 

 for him to kill them with fine shot. Their favorite abode, in tlie localities 

 where he observed them, was among the upper branches of the tall Abies 

 douglassii. They prefer the edge of the forests, rarely retiring to the depths. 

 In early summer, at Fort Steilacoom, they could be seen during the middle 

 of the day, sunning themselves in the firs, or darting from one of those trees 

 to another, or to some of the neighboring white oaks on the prairie. Later 



