SCARLET TANAGER. 43 



cal chant, something resembling in mellowness that of the Balti- 

 more 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 midle 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 thro 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 bril- 

 liancy as this. Seen among the green leaves, with the light fall- 

 ing 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 property of the husband- 

 man; but rather benefits him by the daily destruction in spring of 

 many noxious insects; and when winter approaches he is no plun- 

 dering dependant; but seeks in a distant country for that suste- 

 nance 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 beauti- 

 ful, 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 tipt with white, and the interior edges of the 

 wing feathers nearly white; the bill is strong, considerably inflated 



