124 UPLAND AND MEADOW. 



Bong is likely to be heard, and I am puzzled to know 

 how it comes that the country - folk have overlooked 

 them. 



It is a source of regret that tanagers, beautiful as 

 they are, should offer no peculiarity of voice or habit. 

 Except in color, they are the very opposite of brilliant. 

 Their existence seems really whittled down to the one 

 matter of passing through life with the least possible 

 exertion, except that they do not, cuckoo - like, use an- 

 other bird's nest. Had tanagers the quick wits of a 

 wren, or the general intelligence of a crow, they would 

 be the most charming feature of our woodlands and or- 

 chards ; as it is, they would not be known to exist to 

 others than the professional ornithologist, were it not 

 that Nature has bedecked them with such gaudy color, 

 that to escape notice is impossible. Not accepting the 

 idea that Nature is beyond improvement, and leaving 

 this gayly colored blunder, as the tanager seems to be, 

 what a wonderful change for the better do we find in 

 the cardinal grosbeak, yclept, hereabouts, the winter red- 

 bird. In him we have a fixture of the farm ; as much 

 a part of it as the hickories in the meadow, and the 

 beeches on the hill-side. On the bush that concealed 

 his nest, in June, he perches and whistles throughout 

 January. Wilson speaks of them as preferring, in 

 winter, " sheltered hollows covered with holly, laurel, 

 and other evergreens." This is misleading, to a cer- 

 tain extent. They do not seek such situations for shel- 

 ter from a low temperature so much as from winds. 

 The latter distress them, as they do most birds ; but if 

 the day is still, whatever the temperature, they are 



