444 NORTH AMERICAN BIRDS. 



frequenting the open groves instead of the deeper woods and the forests of 

 the bottom-lands, being especially attached to the parks and groves within the 

 towns. From its similarity in appearance, manners, and notes to the Scarlet 

 Tanager, it is seldom distinguished by the common people from that bird, 

 and those who notice the difference in color between the two generally con- 

 sider this the younger stage of plumage of the black-winged species. Its 

 song is said to be somewhat after the style of the Eobin, but in a firmer 

 tone and more continued. It differs from the song of the P. rubra in being 

 more vigorous, and delivered in a manner less faltering. Its ordinary note of 

 anxiety when the nest is approached is a peculiar pa-chip' it-tut-tut-tut, very 

 different from the weaker chip'-al, rd-ree of the F. rubra. The nest is placed 

 on a low horizontal or drooping branch, near its extremity, the tree being 

 generally an oak, or sometimes a hickory, and situated near the roadside or at 

 the edge of a grove. In its construction it is described as very thin, though 

 by no means frail, permitting the eggs to be seen through the interstices 

 from below. Mr. Ilidgway never found more than three eggs in one nest. 



A nest of this species (Smith. Coll., 589) from Prairie Mer Rouge, Louisi- 

 ana, has a diameter of four inches and a height of two. Like all the nests 

 of this family, the cavity is very shallow, its deepest depression being hardly 

 half an inch. So far from corresponding with the descriptions generally 

 given of it, this nest is well and even strongly put together, altliough a por- 

 tion of the base and some of the external parts are somewhat openly inter- 

 woven, as if for ventilation. These materials are fragments of plants, cat- 

 kins, leaves, stems, and grasses. These seem to constitute a distinct part of 

 the nest, and are of unequal thicknesses in different parts of the structure. 

 Within tliis external frame is a much more artistic and elaborately interwo- 

 ven basket, composed entirely of fine, slender, and dry grasses, homogeneous 

 in character, and evidently gathered just at the time its seed was ripening. 

 It is of a bright straw-yellow, and forms the whole internal portion of the 

 nest. 



The eggs vary somewhat in size and shape, from an oblong to a rounded 

 oval. Their length is from .80 of an inch to an inch, and their breadth 

 averages .68. Their color is a bright light shade of emerald-green, spotted, 

 marbled, dotted, and blotched with various shades of lilac, brownish-purple, 

 and dark-brown. These are generally well diffused equally over the entire 

 egg. 



Pyranga sestiva, var. cooperi, Eidgway. 



Pyranga cooj^eri, Ridgway, Pr. Ac. Nat. Sc. Philad. June, 1869, p. 130, fig. . — Coopei;, 

 Orn. Cal. 1, 1870, 142. 



Sp. Char. Length, 8.60 (fresh specimen) ; extent, 13.50 ; wing, 4.24 ; tail, 3.68 ; cul- 

 men, .84 ; tarsus, .80. Male. Generally rich pure vermilion, similar to that of (Bstiva, but 

 lighter, brighter than in eastern examples, and less rosaceous than in Central Ameri- 

 can specimens. Upper surface scarcely darker than lower, the head above being hardly 



