THE AMERICAN REDSTART. 93 
continued his benevolent offices the whole day, roost- 
ing at night as before. On the third or fourth day, 
he appeared extremely solicitous for the liberation 
of his charge, using every expression of distressful 
anxiety, and every call and invitation that Nature 
had put in his power, for him to come out. This 
was too much for the feelings of my venerable friend ; 
he procured a ladder, and, mounting to the spot 
where the bird was suspended, opened the cage, took 
out the prisoner, and restored him to liberty and to 
his parent, who, with notes of great exultation, ac- 
companied his flight to the woods!” 
The Tanager family embraces not only the Tana- 
ger proper, but the American Wood Warblers. The 
latter are most numerous in the Northern continent, 
as the former abound in the Southern. 
One of the most 
beautiful and in- 
teresting of the 
Wood Warblers is 
the American Red- 
start. This gay 
little bird is more 
noticeable in the 
early months of 
Spring, when it 
may be seen in — 
ecompanywith many American Redstart. 
other species of its kind, nimbly flitting from tree to 
tree, and from twig to twig, in search of insects, of 
which it is a very expert hunter; it will sometimes 
