150 PROBLEMS OF BIRD LIFE. 



to blend with the colors of the earth and with the grass stems 

 they live among. 



But the sparrows have cousins, like the grosbeaks, cardi- 

 nals, and buntings, that are among our gayest birds, brill- 

 iant in red, blue, yellow, and striking combinations. Are 

 these ground-birds ? Not at all, they swing and sing among 

 the tree-tops where there are green leaves about them and 

 blue sky for a background, and the keen edge of their own 

 color is, as it were, taken off. I have often thought, seeing an 

 indigo bird swinging on the top of a balsam fir, that he was 

 just the proper weather-vane for such a tree, his rich blue coat 

 with peacocky hints of green seeming to stand exactly between 

 .the clear blue of the sky and blue green of the fir tree. And 

 in the case of so brilliant a bird as the male scarlet tanager, the 

 brightest color possible, unrelieved by any shading, there seems 

 to be an advantage taken of the law of complemental colors 

 which makes you see scarlet after gazing too steadily at green, 

 or green by looking too intently upon scarlet. He cannot be 

 hidden, and yet you do not see him among the leaves much 

 more quickly than you would a duller-colored bird. 



Another thing that has struck me is that the brightest- 

 colored birds are found most often near civilization. You do 

 not find the orioles and grosbeaks and tanagers so abundant 

 away from farms and gardens. Why this is so I cannot tell 

 you now ; all we wish to infer from it is that their colors evi- 

 dently do not expose them to so much danger that they avoid 

 men ; in some way they either blend with their surroundings 

 or are able to take care of themselves in spite of their brilliant 

 plumage. They are the birds that most of all plunge into the 

 midst of blossoms and frolic in the snowy drifts of apple and 

 cherry blooms. 



Another family of our gayest birds, the warblers, are quite 



