100 
LOUISIANA TANAGER. 
much neatness as the state of the skins would permit. Of three of 
these, which were put into my hands for examination, the most perfect 
was selected for the drawing. Its size and markings were as follow. 
Length six inches and a half ; back, tail, and wings black ; the greater 
wing-coverts tipped with yellow, the next superior row wholly yellow ; 
neck, rump, tail-coverts and whole lower parts greenish yellow ; fore- 
part of the head to and beyond the eyes, light scarlet ; bill yellowish 
horn color ; edges of the upper mandible ragged, as in the rest of its 
tribe ; legs light blue ; tail slightly forked, and edged with dull whitish : 
the whole figure about the size, and much resembling in shape, the 
Scarlet Tanager (Plate XI, fig. 3.) ; but evidently a different species, 
from the black back, and yellow coverts. Some of the feathers on the 
upper part of the back were also skirted with yellow. A skin of what 
I suppose to be the female, or a young bird, differed in having the wings 
and back brownish ; and in being rather less. 
The family, or genus, to which this bird belongs, is particularly sub- 
ject to changes of color, both progressively, during the first and second 
seasons ; and also periodically, afterwards. Some of those that inhabit 
Pennsylvania change from an olive green to a greenish yellow ; and, 
lastly, to a brilliant scarlet ; and I confess when the preserved specimen 
of the present species was first shown me, I suspected it to have been 
passing through a similar change at the time it was taken. But having 
examined two more skins of the same species, and finding them all 
marked very nearly alike, which is seldom the case with those birds that 
change while moulting, I began to think that this might be its most 
permanent, or at least its summer or winter dress. 
The little information I have been able to procure of the species 
generally, or at what particular season these were shot, prevents me 
from being able to determine this matter to my wish. 
I can only learn, that they inhabit the extensive plains or prairies of 
the Missouri, between the Osage and Mandan nations ; building their 
nests in low bushes, and often among the grass. With us the Tanagers 
usually build on the branches of a hickory or white oak sapling. These 
birds delight in various kinds of berries with which those rich prairies 
are said to abound. 
