2i8 Birds of Buzzard's Roost 



nates in a sharp point, and is grayish blue basally and dull 

 green terminally ; iris of the eye is of a cream colored brown ; 

 general color of the plumage in the breeding season is of a 

 bright carmine ; the wings are pointed and black, and it is from 

 these it gets its name of pocket bird because of their having 

 the appearance of side pockets ; the tail is notched and black ; 

 the legs and feet are a pale lavender gray or a lilaceous gray- 

 ish blue. The toes are long and armed with strong claws. 

 When the breeding season is over, the bright carmine color is 

 superseded above by a yellowish olive-green, and below by 

 yellow, shaded with olive-green laterally. The black wings 

 and tail are retained. The color of the adult female above is 

 an olive green, below greenish yellow, with wings and tail 

 dark, highly margined with olive. Both the male and female 

 are beautiful birds. 



The scarlet tanager is a migrant whose range extends from 

 Bolivia, Peru and the West Indies north through the Eastern 

 United States and the more Southern British Provinces to 

 New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, Northern Ontario, and Mani- 

 toba. It comes north about the first of May, and returns south- 

 ward by the middle of September. The males come north a 

 few days in advance of the females. Its breeding range ex- 

 tends north from Virginia, Kentucky and Southern Illinois 

 throughout its northern geographical range. Mating follows 

 the arrival of the female, and nesting commences about the 

 middle of May. The nest is a thin flimsy affair composed of 

 fine roots, tendrils, small sticks and straws, and usually is 

 built from ten to twenty-five feet from the ground on a hori- 

 zontal limb. In the summer of 1904 one of them was built in 

 such a position in an elm tree standing about twenty feet from 

 our residence at Somerleaze, so that we could see it and the 

 birds building it from our dining room. Both birds assist in 

 constructing the nest. The eggs,, three to five of which make 

 a set, are a greenish blue ; finely spotted with rufous-brown. 

 Incubation is attended to by the female, but during it the male 

 is attentive to her, bringing her food, and singing for her ben- 

 efit from the top of some tree in the vicinity of the nest. 



The parent birds are very devoted to their young. Alex- 

 ander Wilson, the great American ornithologist, tells of catch- 



