lo AMERICAN ORNITHOLOGY. 



Day after daj^ for over two weeks, every man and boy in this town 

 and many neighboring ones, who owned or could borrow a gun, was 

 out seeking to slay the "white crow." The name became a by-word in 

 the town; the crow seemed to bear a charmed life; and the tale of his 

 hair breadth escapes read like a fairy story. One man using his wits 

 together with the gun, concealed himself in a corn shock, at about four 

 o'clock one morning, in a field where the flock of crows daily fed. All 

 unsuspecting the flock settled in the field. The white one was with 

 them. The charm was broken. So ended the career of this remark- 

 able bird, except as his stuffed skin is shown to admiring friends; not 

 "because he was a crow, not because he had ever done harm to mankind, 

 "but becaesu he was a freak and a marked bird. 



LOUISIANA TANAGER. 



A. O. U. No. 607. (Piranga ludoviciana.) 



RANGE. 



The United States west of the Plains and south of British Columbia. 

 In Winter, migrating to Guatemala. 



DESCRIPTION. 



Length, 7 in.; extent, 12 in.; tail 3 in. Eye, brown. Feet, blue- 

 gray. Male — Whole head scarlet or crimson, this extending well down 

 on the breast and shading into the yellow of the under parts. Back, 

 wings, and tail, black. Under parts, rump and two bars on the wing, 

 yellow. Female — Upper parts olive, brightest on the crown and rump. 

 Under parts greenish yellow. Wings and tail grayish brown with 

 olive edgings. Two bars of white or yellowish across the wings. 

 These distinguish it from the Scarlet Tanager, of which it is other- 

 wise the exact counterpart. The young male resembles the female and 

 in the transition to the plumage of the adult they assume all the inter- 

 ^^ening stages of plumage. 



NEST AND EGGS. 



The Crimson-headed, Western, or Louisiana Tanager builds a thin 

 frail nest of strips of bark, sticks and grasses. This unsafe house is 

 preferably located in an evergreen tree on some of the lower branches. 



