YELLOW OR ORANGE CONSPICUOUS 531 
tains. Here and in all the Western mountains it breeds 
in the coniferous forests. In the Sierra Nevada the 
Tanagers are among the birds most commonly observed, 
and in May the buffalo berries near Pyramid Lake fairly 
blossom with them. Early in the morning the rather 
wnonotonous song rings clearly from the top of the tall 
pines, and a dash of yellow tipped with red and black 
appears against the dark green of the trees or the blue of 
the sky. The song is very like that of the Kastern tan- 
agers, but less musical, having a shrillness and flatness 
of tone that are not pleasing to the ear. [ts call-note 
is short and incisive and has been rendered as “ pitic, 
pitictic.” 
The nest of this brilliantly plumaged bird is commonly 
placed on a horizontal branch of a fir or pine, and is so 
concealed by the foliage as to be practically invisible 
from below. Unlike the scarlet tanager of the Kast, it 
constructs a carelessly woven saucer-shaped affair, so 
shallow in some instances that a hard wind storm would 
throw the contents out were not the mother brooding 
over them. | 
Incubation lasts thirteen days, and is performed by the 
mother bird alone, the male rarely if ever going to the 
nest until the brood are hatched. As soon as the nest- 
lings are out of the shell, however, he assumes his full 
share of the labor of feeding them. In the case of one 
brood at Slippery Ford in the Sierra Nevada, the male 
brought fifteen large insects and countless smaller ones 
in the half hour between half-past four and five one 
June morning. During most of the day the trips to the 
