g6 SUMMER RED BIRD. 



the bill is disproportionably large, and inflated, the upper 

 mandible furnished with a process, and the whole bill of a 

 yellowish horn colour; the legs and feet are light blue, inclin- 

 ing to purple ; the eye, large, the iris of a light hazel colour ; 

 the length of the whole bird, seven inches and a quarter ; and 

 between the tips of the expanded wings, twelve inches. The 

 female (fig. 4) 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 interior 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 evergreeu, 

 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 colour as the 

 female below, and do not acquire their full tints till the suc- 

 ceeding spring or summer. 



The change, however, commences the first season before their 

 departure. In the month of August, the young males are dis- 

 tinguished from the females by their motley garb ; the yellow 

 plumage below, as well as the olive green above, first becom- 

 ing stained with spots of a buff colour, 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 nonde- 

 script, I made a drawing of it with care ; and on turning to 

 it at this moment, I find the whole of the primaries, and two 

 of the secondaries, yellowish green, the rest of the plumage a 



