SUMMER RED-BIRD. 
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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 inte- 
rior 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 evergreen, 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 depar- 
ture 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 succeeding spring or summer. 
The change, however, commences the first season before 
their departure. In the month of August the young males are 
distinguished from the females by their motleyed garb; the yel- 
low plumage below, as well as the olive green above, first be- 
coming 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 non-descript, 
1 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 se- 
condaries yellowish green, the rest of the plumage a full red. 
This was about the middle of May. In the month of August, 
of the same year, being in the woods with the gun, I perceived 
a bird of very singular plumage, and having never before met 
with such an oddity, instantly gave chase to it. It appeared to 
me, at a small distance, to be sprinkled all over with red, green, 
and yellow. After a great deal of difliculty, for the bird had ta- 
ken notice of my eagerness, and had become extremely shy, I 
