The Western Tanager 



may be a mere keep-in-touch call between the birds themselves ; or it may 

 express a strong suspicion that strangers are about; or it may voice vig- 

 orous disapproval, as when the nest is threatened. Whatever be the im- 

 port of the note, its utterance is the only act in any wise approaching 

 violence of which these leisurely and always genteel Southerners can 

 possibly be guilty. 



The sight of a male Cooper Tanager lighting on the ground to glean 

 a recreant bug is not to be forgotten. It is a vision of ravishing redness, 

 and one's first impulse is to admonish the vision for its rashness. But 

 even royalty feels hunger and thirst at times. One day in Arizona 

 the writer spent an hour watching a little water-hole where a tired river 

 had died within sight of a disappointed mesquite forest. Its approaches 

 were marked by the imprint of a thousand tiny feet, but cover there was 

 none, only dunnest dust. Among the doughty visitors came this sym- 

 phony in red, a superb old male Cooper Tanager. I could scarcely 

 believe my luck, but the bird approached demurely, according to his wont, 

 and selecting a root which projected conveniently from the margin of the 

 pool, proceeded to assuage his thirst. And as he drank, or rather, sipped, 

 chick-a-biddy fashion, he was utterly unconscious either of my frank 

 admiration or of lurking dangers. Believe me, what with image and reflec- 

 tion, that portion of the pool wherein Piranga drank was illuminated for 

 a season! Oh, to have had an autochrome plate! 



No. 76 



Western Tanager 



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



Synonyms. — Louisiana Tanager. Crimson-headed Tanager. 



Description. — Adult male in spring and summer: Head all around and throat, 

 broadly, bright red (nopal red), the color most intense on forehead and crown, shading 

 posteriorly; back, wings, and tail black, the feathers of back often slightly margined 

 with yellow; the tips of greater coverts pale yellow or yellowish white; the posterior 

 portion of lesser wing-coverts, the middle coverts, hind-neck, rump, upper tail-coverts, 

 and all remaining underparts rich yellow. Bill wax-yellow, browning on culmen; iris 

 brown; feet and legs bluish gray. Adult male in autumn: As in spring, but red want- 

 ing, or indicated by faint tinge, the yellow of occiput and hind-neck veiled by olive 

 greenish or dusky tips; the tertials tipped with pale yellow, and the rectrices with 

 white. Adult female: Somewhat like male, but much duller, without red, or some- 

 times tinged with reddish about face; above olive-gray; changing on head, rump, 

 and upper tail-coverts to pyrite yellow; below olive-yellow, clearing on middle of 

 breast and under tail-coverts to strontian yellow. Immature males resemble the 

 adult female and only gradually acquire the clearer, brighter plumage of maturity. 



43' 



