SUMMER TANAGER. 



PIRANGA RUBRA (LINN.). 

 244. Summer Tanager. (610) 



Malt : Rich rose-red or vermilion, including wings and tail ; the wings, 

 however, dusky on the inner webs ; bill, rather pale ; feet, darker. Female : 

 Dull brownish-olive; below, dull brownish -yellow. Young male: Like the 

 female ; the male changing plumage, shows red and green confused in irregular- 

 patches, but no black. The female, with general resemblance to female erythro- 

 mdatf is distinguished by the dull brownish, ochre or buffy tinge, the greenish 

 and yellowish of erythromelas being much purer ; the bill and feet also are 

 generally much paler in rubra. Size of erythromelax or rather larger. 



H AB. Eastern United States to the Plains, north to Southern New Jersey 

 and Southern Illinois, casually north to Connecticut and Ontario, and accident- 

 ally to Nova Scotia ; in winter, Cuba, Central America and Northern South 

 America. 



Nest, on the horizontal bough of a tree, composed of strips of bark, rootlets 

 and grass, lined with fine grass and fibre. 



Eggs, three to five, light green, spotted with reddish-brown and lilac. 



We sometimes meet in the humbler walks of life people with little 

 education, who, from a natural love of the subject, are wonderfully 

 correct in their observation of the birds. 



A man of this class, who, at the time of which I speak, lived near 

 a clump of bush on the " mountain," above the reservoir, three miles 

 east of Hamilton, told me that one summer while he lived there a 

 number of red birds, which had not black wings and tail like the 

 common kind, bred near his house. I felt sure he was describing the 

 Summer Red Bird, and looked through that bush with interest every 

 subsequent spring, but it was not till May, 1885, that I found the 

 first and only individual of the species I ever saw in Canada. It was 

 a female in fine adult plumage, and was among a group of Scarlet 

 Tanagers, which apparently had just arrived from the south, and 

 were enjoying the last rays of the setting sun that gilded the 

 topmost twigs of a dead tree in the bush already referred to. 

 Individuals have been found straggling as far north as Massa- 

 chusetts and Connecticut, but the home of the species is farther 

 south, and the above is the only record for Ontario. 



Mr. Ridgway says that the male requires several years to attain 

 the full plumage, immature individuals showing a mixture of red 

 and yellow in relative proportions, according to the age. 



