94 
SCARLET TAN A G E R. 
of the eye is of a cream color, the legs and feet light blue. The female 
(now I believe for the first time figured) is green above and yellow 
below, the wings and tail brownish black, edged with green. The young 
birds, during their residence here the first season, continue nearly of the 
same color with the female. In this circumstance we again recognise 
the wise provision of the Deity, in thus clothing the female and the inex- 
perienced young, in a garb so favorable for concealment among the foli- 
age ; as the weakness of the one, and the frequent visits of the other to 
her nest, would greatly endanger the safety of all. That the young 
males do not receive their red plumage until the early part of the suc- 
ceeding spring, I think highly probable, from the circumstance of fre- 
quently finding their red feathers, at that season, intermixed with green 
ones, and the wings also broadly edged with green. These facts render 
it also probable that the old males regularly change their color, and 
have a summer and winter dress ; but this, farther observations must 
determine. 
There is in the Brazils a bird of the same genus with this, and very 
much resembling it, so much so as to have been frequently confounded 
with it by European writers. It is the Tanagra Brazllia of Turton ; 
and though so like, is a yet very distinct species from the present, as I 
have myself had the opportunity of ascertaining, by examining two very 
perfect specimens from Brazil, now in the possession of Mr. Peale, and 
comparing them with this. The principal differences are these : the 
plumage of the Brazilian is almost black at bottom, very deep scarlet at 
the surface, and of an orange tint between ; ours is ash colored at bot- 
tom, white in the middle, and bright scarlet at top. The tail of ours is 
forked, that of the other cuneiform or rounded. The bill of our species 
is more inflated, and of a greenish yellow color — the other's is black 
above, and whitish below towards the base. The whole plumage of the 
southern species is of a coarser, stiffer quality, particularly on the head. 
The wings and tail, in both, are black. 
In the account which Buffbn gives of the Scarlet Tanager, and Car- 
es O t 
dinal Grosbeak, there appears to be very great confusion, and many 
mistakes ; to explain which it is necessary to observe, that Mr. Edwards 
in his figure of the Scarlet Tanager, or Scarlet Sparrow as he calls it, 
has given it a hanging crest, owing no doubt to the loose disordered 
state of the plumage of the stuffed or dried skin from which he made his 
drawing. Buffon has afterwards confounded the two together by apply- 
ing many stories originally related of the Cardinal Grosbeak, to the 
Scarlet Tanager ; and the following he gravely gives as his reason for 
so doing: " We may presume," says he, "that when travellers talk of 
the warble of the Cardinal they mean the Scarlet Cardinal, for the other 
Cardinal is of the genus of the Grosbeaks, consequently a silent bird."* 
* Buffon, vol. iv., p. 209. 
