448 THE BIRDS OF MAINE 



Their food consists of beetles, caterpillars, flies, lice, grubs, 

 and similar insects found in the foliage of the thickets and hard 

 wood growth which they seem to prefer, in general selecting 

 about the same sort of habitat as the Rose-breasted Grosbeak. 

 In late summer and fall they are also seed and berry eaters. 



In Maine the nests are ready for eggs from the middle to 

 the last of June. The nest is composed of fine twigs, plant 

 and grass stems, lined with fine rootlets and twigs, and it is 

 rather frail and open but still stiff and strong. The usual 

 nesting site is the horizontal limb of a tree at heights of six to 

 fifty feet in hardwood growth. 



A nest found seven feet from the ground on the limb of a 

 white oak in shady woods at Dubuque, Iowa, June 1, 1893, 

 was sent me by the collector. This nest is two inches in height 

 outside by one inside, its outside diameter is four and its inside 

 diameter two and a half inches. The eggs measure 0.90 x 

 0.66, 0.92 X 0.69, 0.90 x 0.68, 0.89 x 0.68. Three to five, 

 usually four eggs are laid and they are rather pale greenish 

 blue, spotted with rufous and brownish markings. The mark- 

 ings are generally most abundant at the larger end, often 

 forming an open wreath. Observers state that in general 

 the female does all the work of nest building and incubation. 



610. ^ Piranga rubra (Linn.). Summer Tanager; Summer 

 Redbird. 



Plumage of adult male : wings fuscous, margined with red ; otherwise 

 wholly red. Plumage of immatiu'e males : varying from that described 

 below for the females through mixtures of red to full adult plumage. 

 Plumage of females and immature : ochraceous olive above ; yellowish 

 orange below. Wing 3.70 ; culmen 0.85 ; tail 3.00. 



Geog. Dist. — Eastern United States, west to the Plains, north to southern 

 New Jersey and southern Illinois ; casual in Massachusetts, Ontario, Maine, 

 New Brunswick and Nova Scotia ; wintering from Cuba and eastern Mexico 

 to northern South America. 



County Records. — Lincoln ; the specimen so doubtfully cited by Mr. Smith 

 in his list as being of this species is at present in the Bowdoin College col- 

 lection, and has been identified by Mr. Brewster who states that it is 

 positively a Summer Tanager ; it was taken at Wiscasset. 



