64 SUMMER RED-BIRD. 
ceived the European uaturalists so much, tlat four different species 
have been formed out of this one, as appears by the above synonymes, 
all of which are referable to the present species, the Summer Red- 
Bird. As the female differs so much in color from the male, it has 
been thought proper to represent them both; the female having never, 
to my knowledge, appeared in any former publication; and all the 
figures of the other that I have seen being little better than carica- 
tures, from which a foreigner can form no just conception of the 
original. 
The male of the Summer Red-Bird (Fig. 21) is wholly of a rich ver- 
milion color, most brilliant on the lower parts, except the inner vanes 
and tips of the wings, which are of a dusky brown; the bill is dispro- 
portionably large, and inflated, the upper mandible furnished with a 
process, and the whole bill of a yellowish horn color; the legs and 
feet are light blue, inclining to purple; the eye, large, the iris of a 
light hazel color; the length of the whole bird, seven inches and a 
quarter ; and between the tips of the expanded wings, twelve inches. 
The female (Fig. 22) differs little in size from the male; but is, above, 
of a brownish yellow olive, lightest over the eye; throat, breast, and 
whole lower part of the body, of a dull orange yellow; tips and in- 
terior vanes of the wings, brown; bill, legs, and eye, as in the male. 
The nest is built in the woods, on the horizontal branch of a half- 
grown tree, often an evergreen, at the height of ten or twelve feet 
from the ground; composed, outwardly, of broken stalks of dry flax, 
and lined with fine grass; the female lays three light-blue eggs; the 
young are produced about the middle of June; and I suspect that the 
same pair raise no more than one brood in a season, for I have never 
found their nests but in May or June. Towards the middle of August, 
they take their departure for the south, their residence here being 
scarcely four months. The young are, at first, of a green olive above, 
nearly the same color as the female below, and do not acquire their full 
tints till the succeeding spring or summer. 
The change, however, commences the first season before their de- 
parture. 1n the month of August, the young males are distinguished 
from the females by their motley garb; the yellow plumage below, 
as well as the olive green above, first becoming stained with spots of 
a buff color, which gradually brighten into red; these being irregularly 
scattered over the whole body, except the wings and tail, particularly 
the former, which I have often found to contain four or five green 
quills in the succeeding June. The first of these birds I ever shot 
was green winged; and conceiving it at that time to be a nondescript, 
I made a drawing of it with care ; and on turning to it at this moment, 
1 find the whole of the primaries, and two of the secondaries, yellowish 
green, the rest of the plumage a full red. This was about the middle 
_ an obtuse tooth,—a structure which has been taken by Desmarest to denote his 
Tanagras Coluriens, or Shrike-like Tanagers. They are also the Tanagras Car- 
dinal of Cuvier. Bonaparte, again, retains Vieillot’s group, but only as a subgenus 
to Tanagra. 
It is composed of nine or ten species, three only being found in North America. 
They are generally of rich, sometimes gaudy, plumage, and require more than one 
hoe to ave at maturity. They live in pairs, and feea on insects, berries, or soft 
seeds. — Ep. 
