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In the chestnut grove, where a month ago the wood thrush, the rose-breasted grosbeak, and the scarlet tanager were singing, the loiterer now hears nothing but the wood pewee's pensive whistle and the sharp monotony of the red-eyed vireo. The thrasher is silent in the berry pasture, and the bobolink in the meadow. The season of jollity is over.
These labels were precious truths to him, and the birds: Osprey Partridge or Ruffed Grouse Kingfisher Bittern Bluejay Highholder Rosebreasted Grosbeak Sawwhet Owl Woodthrush Oriole Scarlet Tanager * were, with their names, deeply impressed on his memory and added to his woodlore, though not altogether without a mixture of error.
But I hope that, by making laws to protect birds and teaching children everywhere what good neighbors and Citizens they are, these beautifully plumed families may increase once more. "The Scarlet Tanager is the brightest red bird that you will find in the eastern half of the United States, but even he is not as showy as his western cousin, the Louisiana Tanager." The Scarlet Tanager
High banks crested with green enclosed them on either side, and beyond lay higher hills, their slopes and summits all living green. The singing of birds came from the bushes on the banks, and a sudden flash of flame told where a scarlet tanager had crossed.
And the soundness of my sleep is such that time does not exist between their last crepuscular squeak and the first wiry twittering of a blue tanager, in full sunshine, from a palm overhanging my beach. A most admirable servant of mine once risked his life to reach a magnificent Bornean orchid, and tried to poison me an hour later when he thought I was going to take the plant away from him.
Birds flashed across the open vault of this forest room brilliant birds, like the Louisiana Tanager; sober little birds like the creepers and nuthatches. Circumspect and reserved whitecrowns and brush tohees scratched and hopped silently over the forest litter. Once a swift falcon, glancing like a shadowy death, slanted across the upper spaces. The food was excellent, and daintily served.
Perhaps they were ugly things, but a tree whose surface is uncut is turned on Nature's lathe; at any rate, to the child the poles were merely a part of the Canadian road, and the scarlet tanager showed its plumage to advantage as it sat on the bare wood. There was no turning back then; even Sophia would have neglected her morning task to see a tanager!
"He is very fond of water, both for bathing and drinking, and seldom nests far from it. Whether he uses the quiet ponds and smooth streams also for a looking-glass to comb his hair and arrange his gay coat by, we cannot be sure, but he always looks as trig as if he had some such aid. "The Tanager children are curious things. Sometimes they wear coats of many colors, like Joseph's."
One is a Northern bunting. A flock stayed one day in our orchard on their way northward to their summer home, and I succeeded in killing and stuffing a pair. The feathers of the male were a beautiful pink-red. The other strange bird seemed to come with the scarlet tanager, and is much like a pee-wee in shape and size, with feathers of a greenish yellow."
It is the robin, catbird, thrush, bluebird, dove, woodpecker, chickadee, phoebe, tanager and other birds of the lawn, the garden and orchard that afford good hunting for sly and savage old Thomas. When I was a boy in my 'teens, I had a lasting series of object lessons on the cat as a predatory animal.
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