XVI 

 TANAGERS AND SWALLOWS 



SCARLET TANAGER 



July 8, 1852. I hear many scarlet tanagers, the first 

 I have seen this season, which some might mistake 

 for a red-eye. A hoarse, rough strain, comparatively, 

 but more easily caught owing to its simplicity and 

 sameness ; something like heer chip-er-way-heer chory 

 chay. 



May 20, 1853. Saw a tanager in Sleepy Hollow. It 

 most takes the eye of any bird. You here have the red- 

 wing reversed, — the deepest scarlet of the red-wing 

 spread over the whole body, not on the wing-coverts 

 merely, while the wings are black. It flies through the 

 green foliage as if it would ignite the leaves. 



May 23, 1853. At Loring's Wood heard and saw a 

 tanager. That contrast of a refZ bird with the green 

 pines and the blue sky ! Even when I have heard his 

 note and look for him and find the bloody fellow, sitting 

 on a dead twig of a pine, I am always startled. (They 

 seem to love the darkest and thickest pines.) That in- 

 credible red, with the green and blue, as if these were 

 the trinity we wanted. Yet with his hoarse note he pays 

 for his color. I am transported ; these are not the woods 

 I ordinarily walk in. He sunk Concord in his thought. 

 How he enhances the wildness and wealth of the woods ! 

 This and the emperor moth make the tropical phenomena 



