S C A R L E T T A N AGE R. 
93 
tone, may be occasionally heard ; which appear to proceed from a con- 
siderable 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 glow- 
ing color would often expose him. Besides this usual note, be has, at 
times, a more musical chant, something resembling 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 buckle-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 together; stalks of broken flax, and dry 
grass, so thinly wove 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. 
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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 brilliancy as this. 
Seen among the green leaves, with the light falling strongly on his 
plumage, lie 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. lie commits no depreda tions on the pro- 
perty of the husbandman ; but rather benefits him by the daily destruc- 
tion in spring of many noxious insects ; and when winter approaches he 
is no plundering dependant, but seeks in a distant country for that sus- 
tenance which the severity of the season denies to bis 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. 
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 
tipped with white, and the interior edges of the wing feathers nearly 
white ; the bill is strong, considerably inflated like those of his tribe, the 
edge of the upper mandible somewhat irregular, as if toothed, and the 
whole of a, dirty gamboge or yellowish horn color; this however, like 
that of most other birds, varies according to the season. About the 
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first of August he begins to moult; the young feathers coming out of a 
greenish yellow color, until he appears nearly all dappled with spots of 
scarlet 'and greenish yellow. In this state of plumage he leaves us. 
How long it is before he recovers his scarlet dress, or whether he con- 
tinues of this greenish color all winter, I am unable to say. The iris 
