126 SCARLET ‘TANAGER. 
dress .d in the richest scarlet, set off with the most jetty vlack, and 
comes, over extensive countries, to sojourn for a time among us. 
While we consider him entitled to all. the rights of hospitality, we 
may be permitted to examine a little into his character, and endeavor 
to discover whether he has any thing else to recommend him, besides 
that of having a fine coat, and being a great traveller. 
On or about the first of May, this bird makes his appearance in 
Pennsylvania. He spreads over the United States, and is found even 
in Canada. He rarely approaches the habitations of man, unless, 
perhaps, to the orchard, where he sometimes builds, or to the cherry- 
trees, in search of fruit. The depth of the woods is his favorite 
abode. There, among the thick foliage of the tallest trees, his simple 
and almost monotonous notes, chip, churr, repeated at short intervals, in 
a pensive tone, may be occasionally heard, which appear to proceed 
from a considerable 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 glowing color would often expose him. Besides this 
usual note, he has, at times, a more musical ‘chant, something resem- 
bling 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 Vaccinium 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 to- 
gether; stalks of broken flax and dry grass, so thinly woven 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 
strikes 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 depreda- 
tions on the property of the husbandman, but rather benefits him by 
the daily destruction, in spring, of many noxious insects; and, when 
winter approaches, he is no plundering dependent, but seeks, in a dis- 
tant country, for that sustenance 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. 
warmer parts of it. The present species is, indeed, the only one which is common 
to the north and south continents ; and, in the former, it ranks only as a summer 
visitant. They are all of very bright colors, and distinct markings. They are 
distinguished from the true Tanagers, by their stout and rounded bill, slightly 
notched, bent at the tip, and having a jutting-out, blunt tooth about the middle of the 
upper mandible. They are jened’ by Desmarest among his Tanagras colluriens, 
or Shrike-like Tanagers ; and by Lesson among the Tanagras cardinales. The lat 
ter writer enumerates only three species belonging to his division. — Ep. 
