86 
Birds Every Child Should Know 
their family. Moreover, cedarbirds are very 
good to feathered orphans. 
THE SCARLET TANAGER 
Called also: Black-winged Redbird 
People who are now living can remember 
when scarlet tanagers were as common as robins. 
Where are they now? You see a redbird at 
the north so rarely that a thrill of excitement is 
felt when a flash of scarlet among the tree-tops 
makes the day a red-letter one on your bird 
calendar. Alas! He has, what has certainly 
proved to be, the fatal gift of beauty. A 
scarlet coat with black wings and tail, worn by 
a bird larger than a sparrow, makes a shining 
mark among the foliage for the shot gun and 
sling shot. Thousands of tanagers have been 
slaughtered to be worn on the unthinking heads 
of vain girls and women. Many are killed 
every year, during the spring and autumn 
migrations, by flying against the great light- 
houses along our coasts, the birds’ highway 
of travel. Tanagers, who are only summer 
visitors from the tropics, are peculiarly suscepti- 
ble to cold; a sudden change in the weather, 
a drop in the thermometer some time in May 
just after they have come here from a warmer 
