SCARLET TANAGER. 9S 



tone, may be occasionally heard ; which appear to proceed from a con- 

 siderable distance though the bird be immediately above you ; a faculty 

 bestowed on him by the beneficent Author of Nature, no doubt for his 

 protection ; to compensate in a degree for the danger to which his glow- 

 ing color would often expose him. Besides this usual note, he has, at 

 times, a more musical chant, something resembling in mellowness that 

 of the Baltimore Oriole. His food consists of large, winged insects, 

 such as wasps, hornets and humble-bees, and also of fruit, particularly 

 those of that species of Vaecinium usually called huckle-berries, which 

 in their season form almost his whole fare. His nest is built about the 

 middle of May, on the horizontal branch of a tree, sometimes an apple 

 tree, and is but slightly put together ; stalks of broken flax, and dry 

 grass, so thinly wove together that the light is easily perceivable through 

 it, form the repository of his young. The eggs are three, of a dull blue, 

 spotted with brown or purple. They rarely raise more than one brood 

 in a season, and leave us for the south about the last week in August. 



Among all the birds that inhabit our woods there is none that strike 

 the eye of a stranger, or even a native, with so much brilliancy as this. 

 Seen among the green leaves, with the light falling strongly on his 

 plumage, he really appears beautiful. If he has little of melody in his 

 notes to charm us, he has nothing in them to disgust. His manners are 

 modest, easy, and inoffensive. He commits no depredations on the pro- 

 perty of the husbandman ; but rather benefits him by the daily destruc- 

 tion in spring of many noxious insects ; and when winter approaches he 

 is no plundering dependant, but seeks in a distant country for that sus- 

 tenance which the severity of the season denies to his industry in this. 

 He is a striking ornament to our rural scenery, and none of the meanest 

 of our rural songsters. Such being the true traits of his character, we 

 shall always with pleasure welcome this beautiful, inoffensive stranger, 

 to our orchards, groves and forests. 



The male of this species, when arrived at his full size and colors, is 

 six inches and a half in length, and ten and a half broad. The whole 

 plumage is of a most brilliant scarlet, except the wings and tail, which 

 are of a deep black ; the latter handsomely forked, sometimes minutely 

 tipped with white, and ' the interior edges of the wing feathers nearly 

 white ; the bill is strong, considerably inflated like those of his tribe, the 

 edge of the upper mandible somewhat irregular, as if toothed, and the 

 whole of a dirty gamboge or yellowish horn color ; this however, like 

 that of most other birds, varies according to the season. About the 

 first of August he begins to moult ; the young feathers coming out of a 

 greenish yellow color, until he appears nearly all dappled with spots of 

 scarlet and greenish yellow. In this state of plumage he leaves us. 

 How long it is before he recovers his scarlet dress, or whether he con- 

 tinues of this greenish color all winter, I am unable to say. The iris 



