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CuENKY, Some Bird Songs. 



Scarlet Tanager. 



y;\iuiary 



This Tan;iger, the Baltimore Oriole's rival in beauty, is the less 

 active, the less vigorous charmer of the two, and has less vocal 

 power ; but it would be difficult to imagine a more pleasing and 

 delicate exhibition of a bird to both eye and ear than that pre- 

 sented by this singer in scarlet and black, as he stands on the 

 limb of some tall tree in the early sun, shining, and singing, high 

 above the earth, his brief, plaintive, morning song. The Tana- 

 ger's is an unobtrusive song, vs^hile the percussive, ringing tones 

 of the Oriole compel attention. In the spring of i8S8 a beautiful 

 singer greeted me one summer morning from the top of a tall oak 

 near the house. He paid frequent visits to the same tree-top 

 during the entire season, and sang the same song, beginning and 

 ending with the same tones : 



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Still, like other birds, he had his variations : 



-0—n ^ 





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»— »- 



g^g'gEga^iig ^=g^ | 



-tr-fa * ^ m ». "f " p..0J!-.9-^-0 »- ^-^ #|^j 



These were all June songs, the last two being sung late in the 

 afternoon. 



Though the singer's home was in the near woods, we did not 

 discover the nest of his mate. There came a time of silence, and 

 an absence of flaming plumage, and finally a family of Tanagers 

 — undoubtedly ours — male and female and three unfinished young 



