APPENDIX. 185 



Scarlet Tanager. (See p. 74.) 



" Their more common notes are simple and brief, resembling, accord- 

 ing to Wilson, the sound chip-charr. Mr. Bidgway represents them by 

 chip-a-ra'-ree. This song it repeats at brief intervals and in a pensive 

 tone, and with a singular faculty of causing it to seem to come from a 

 greater than the real distance. Besides this it also has a more varied and . 

 musical chant, resembling the mellow notes of the Baltimore oriole. The 

 female also utters similar notes when her nest is approached ; and in their 

 mating-season, as they move together through the branches, they both 

 utter a low whispering warble in a tone of great sweetness and tender- 

 ness. As a whole, this bird may be regarded as a musical performer of 

 very respectable merits." Baird, Brewer, and Bidgway: North American 

 Birds. Land-Birds, vol. i. p. 436. 



Mr. Nelson and Mr. Samuels find not a little of the 

 robin's song in that of the tanager; while Mr. A. P. 

 Coleman, of Victoria University, Coburg, Ontario, reports 

 him as singing at the Thousand Islands early in the 

 summer of 1886 as follows: 



I J r " II 



" During the three weeks that we heard him," says Mr. Coleman, " he 

 made no other variation, except that he occasionally repeated the last two 

 notes a third time, thus filling out the bar. The notes were taken down 

 by a trained musician, and if whistled give the tanager's song exactly." 

 Coleman, A. P. : Music in Nature. (Nature, vol. xxxvi., 1887, p. 605.) 



See also Lunt, H. : Across Lots, p. 89. 



Bright Plumage vs. Song. 



It would seem that bright plumage is not proof against 

 bright song. It may be with the birds as it is with the 



