YELLOW OR ORANGE CONSPICUOUS 531 



tains. Here and in all the Western: mountains it breeds 

 in the coniferous forests. In the Sierra Nevada the 

 Tanagers are among the birds most commonly observed, 

 and in May the buffalo berries near Pyramid Lake fairly 

 blossom with them. Early in the morning the rather 

 monotonous song rings clearly from the top of the tall 

 pines, and a dash of yellow tipped with red and black 

 appears against the dark green of the trees or the blue of 

 the sky. The song is very like that of the Eastern tan- 

 agers, but less musical, having a shrillness and flatness 

 of tone that are not pleasing to the ear. Its call-note 

 is short and incisive and has been rendered as " pitic, 

 pitictic." 



The nest of this brilliantly plumaged bird is commonly 

 placed on a horizontal branch of a fir or pine, and is so 

 concealed by the foliage as to be practically invisible 

 from below. Unlike the scarlet tanager of the East, it 

 constructs a carelessly woven saucer-shaped affair, so 

 shallow in some instances that a hard wind storm would 

 throw the contents out were not the mother brooding 

 over them. 



Incubation lasts thirteen days, and is performed by the 

 mother bird alone, the male rarely if ever going to the 

 nest until the brood are hatched. As soon as the nest- 

 lings are out of the sliell, however, he assumes his full 

 share of the labor of feeding them. In the case of one 

 brood at Slippery Ford in the Sierra Nevada, the male 

 brought fifteen large insects and countless smaller ones 

 in the half hour between half-past four and five one 

 June morning. During most of the day the trips to the 



