6io 
A YEAR WITH THE BIRDS 
Male and Female: Above dull mouse color, wings and tail brownish; 
below white, with a brownish breast band. Bill and feet dark. 
Song: A giggling twitter. 
Season: Common summer resident, arriving in May. 
Nest: In tunneled holes in clayey banks; made of grass and lined 
with a few feathers. 
Eggs: 4-6, pure white. 
The Bank Swallow is the plainest, as well as the smallest, 
of the family. His back is the color of the damp mottled 
gray sand with which he is closely associated, and he shows 
no glints of purple, steel-blue, and buff, like his brethren, but 
wears a dusky cloak, fastened about his throat with a band 
of the same color. 
Swallows over the water, 
Warblers over the land, 
Silvery, tinkling ripples 
Along the pebbly strand ; 
Afar in the upper ether 
The eagle floats at rest ; 
No wind now frets the forest, 
’Tis Nature at her best. 
The golden haze of autumn 
Enwraps the bloom of May — 
Fate grant me many another 
Such perfect summer day. 
— Charles C. Abbott 
Family Tanagridae: Tanagers 
Scarlet Tanager: Piranga erythromelas. S. R. 
Length: 6.75-7 inches. 
Male: A rich scarlet. Wings and tail black. Feet deep horn-color. 
Female: Olive-green above; dull olive-yellow below. Wings and tail 
dusky. 
Song: Mellow and cheerful — “Pshaw! wait — wait — wait for me, 
wait ! ” Call note, “ Chip-chur ! ” 
Season: Arrives the middle of May, and leaves in late August. No 
longer common. 
Nest: Rather flat and ragged ; made of sticks, root fibres, etc. ; placed 
on the high horizontal branch, preferably, of an oak or pine. 
Eggs: 3-5, dull green, thickly spotted with brown and mauve. 
A few years ago the Scarlet Tanager was as familiar here- 
about as the Yellow Warbler, or the Wood Thrush; but now 
it has, in a great measure, left the gardens and frequented 
woodlands, and become the resident of lonely woods. To- 
