194 
SCARLET TANAGER. 
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. 
Among all the birds that inhabit our woods, there is none 
that strikes 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, he 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. He commits no depredations on the 
property of the husbandman, but rather benefits him by the 
daily destruction, in spring, of many noxious insects ; and, 
when winter approaches, he is no plundering dependant, but 
seeks, in a distant country, for that sustenance which the 
severity of the season denies to his 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 
colours, 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 colour ; this, however, like that of most other birds, varies 
according to the season. About the 1st of August he begins 
to moult ; the young feathers coming out, of a greenish yellow 
colour, 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 
