96 
SUMMER RED BIRD. 
the inner vanes and tips of the wings, which are of a dusky 
brown ; the bill is disproportionably large, and inflated, the 
upper mandible furnished with a process, and the whole bill of a 
yellowish horn colour; the legs and feet are light blue, inclining 
to purple ; the eye, large, the iris of a light hazel colour; the 
length of the whole bird, seven inches and a quarter ; and 
between the tips of the expanded wings, twelve inches. The 
female (fig. 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 interior 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 departure 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 motley garb ; the 
yellow plumage below, as well as the olive green above, first 
becoming 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 
nondescript, I made a drawing of it with care ; and on turning 
to it at this moment, I find the whole of the primaries, and 
