SUMMER RED-BIRD. 
231 
him to liberty and to his parent, who, with notes of 
great exultation, accompanied his flight to the woods. 
The happiness of my good friend was scarcely less 
complete, and shewed itself in his benevolent coun- 
tenance ; and I could not refrain saying to myself, — 
If such sweet sensations can be derived from a simple 
circumstance of this kind, how exquisite, how unspeak- 
ably rapturous, must the delight of those individuals 
have been, who have rescued their fellow beings from 
death, chains, and imprisonment, and restored them 
to the arms of their friends and relations ! Surely, in 
such godlike actions, virtue is its own most abundant 
retvard. 
156 . TAN AGRA AESTIVA, GM. AND WILS. SUMMER RED-BIB, D. 
WILSON, PLATE VI. FIG. III. MALE. — FIG. IV. FEMALE. 
The change of colour which this bird is subject to 
during the first year, and the imperfect figure first 
given of it by Catesby, have deceived the European 
naturalists so much, that four different species have 
been formed out of this one. 
The male of the summer red-bird is wholly of a rich 
vermilion colour, most brilliant on the lower parts, 
except the inner vanes and tips of the wings, which are 
of a dusky brown ; the bill is disproportionably large, 
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 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, 
