THE SCABLET TANAGEB. 251 



PIEAif GA EUBEA. — Heiflbt 



The Scarlet Tanager. 



Tanagra rubra. Linn., I. (1766) 3U. Wil. Am. Ora., 11. (ISIO) 42. Aud. Om. 

 Riog., IT. (1S3S) 3SS. 



Desckiptiox. 



Bill shorter than the head; second quUl longest; nrst and third a little shorter; 

 lail moderately forked ; general color of male bright-carmine ; wings and tail velvet- 

 black, the quills internally edged with white towards the base. Female olive-green 

 above, yellowish beneath; «"ing and tail feathers brown, edged with olivaceous. 



The young m^iles are colored like the females, but generally exhibit more or less 

 of red feathers among the greenish ones. Sometimes the fiill plumage is varied by 

 a few yeUow feathers, or by olivaceous edges to the wings ; not untrequendy there 

 is a partly concealed bar of red or yellow on the wing, across the median covens. 

 Young mules are sometimes seen with the body like the female, the wings and tail 

 Uke the male. 



Length, seven and forty one-hundredths inches; wing, four inches; tail, three 

 inches. 



This o-audr summer yisitor breeds in all the New-Eiifflaud 

 States ; less plentifullj, however, in the northern than in the 

 southern districts. It arriyes from the South about the fif- 

 teenth of May. and commences building about the last of 

 that month. The favorite localities of this bird seem to bo 

 oak-groves, situated near swamps : here I have often heard 

 several males singing at the same time, and have watched 

 them in their active movements in their pursuit of insects, 

 of which this species destroys great numbers. The nest is 

 placed on a horizontal limb of a tree, usually from fifteen 

 to twenty feet fi-om the ground, in the deep woods. It is 

 constructed of slender twigs of the oak, huckleberry or 

 whortleberry bush, and weeds : these are loosely put tt> 

 gether ; so much so, tliat, were it not for the interlacing of 

 the small joints of the twigs, it would soon fall apart. It is 

 not deeply hollowed, and is Hned with thread-like fibrous 

 roots and the leaves of the various pines. The whole 

 structure is so thinly made as almost to fall to pieces on 

 removal from the tree. The eggs are usually four m num- 

 ber, sometimes three, seldom five. They are of a dull light 

 greenish-blue ct^lor, of different shades, and spattered with 



