96 SUMMER RED-BIRD. 



the whole day, roosting 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 invi- 

 tation 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 accompanied his flight to the 

 woods. The happiness of my good friend was scarcely less complete, 

 and showed itself in his benevolent countenance ; and I could not refrain 

 saying to myself — If such sweet sensations can be derived from a simple 

 circumstance of this kind, how exquisite, how unspeakably rapturous 

 must the delight of those individuals have been, who have rescued their 

 fellow beings from death, chains and imprisonment, and restored them 

 to the arms of their friends and relations ! Surely in such godlike 

 actions virtue is its own most abundant reward. 



Species II. TAN AGRA JESTIVA. 



SUMMER RED-BIRD. 



[Plate VI. Fig. 3, Male. Fig. 4, Female] 



Tanaf/ra Mississippensis, Lath. Ind. Orn. i., 421, 5. — Mexican Tanager, Latham, 

 Syn. III., 219, 5, jB. — Tanagra variegata, Ind. Orn. i., 421, 6. — Tanagra wstiva, 

 Ind. Orn. i., 422, 7. — Muscicapa rubra, Linn. Si/st. i., 326, 8. — Buff. vi. 252, 

 PI. Enl. 741. — Catesb. Car. i., 56. — Merula flammula, Sandhill Red-bird, Bar- 

 tram, 299. 



The change of color which this- bird is subject to during the first 

 year, and the imperfect figure first given of it by Catesby, have deceived 

 the European naturalists so much, that four different species have been 

 formed out of this one, as appears by the above synonymes, all of which 

 are referable to the present species, the Summer Red-bird. As the 

 female differs so much in color from the male, it has been thought pro- 

 per to represent them both ; the female having never to my knowledge 

 appeared in any former publication ; and all the figures of the other, 

 that I have seen, being little better than caricatures, from which a 

 foreigner can form no just conception of the original. 



The male of the Summer Red-bird (fig. 3), is wholly of a rich ver- 

 milion color, most brilliant on the lower parts, except the inner vanes 

 and tips of the wings, which are of a dusky brown ; the bill is dispro- 

 portionably large, and inflated, the upper mandible furnished with a 

 process, and the whole bill of a yellowish horn color ; the legs and feet 



