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Scarlet tanagers darted like flashes of flame from tree to tree, and from low boughs a bird now and then poured forth a full measure of song. Braxton Wyatt had never looked upon a more peaceful wilderness, but before the sun began to set he was afflicted with a strange disquiet.
The others tanagers, finches, tyrant-birds; red, white, blue, grey, yellow, and mixed were, I must own, less troublesome, for, after hopping about for a while, screaming, chirping, and twittering, they very sensibly flew away, no doubt thinking their friends the cuckoos were making a great deal too much fuss.
We thus have a succession of splendid and expensive works dealing separately with such groups as woodpeckers, trogons, humming-birds, tanagers, king-fishers, and birds of paradise; for with these, even if there be nothing to record beyond the usual dreary details and technicalities concerning geographical distribution, variations in size and markings of different species, &c., the little interest of the letter-press is compensated for in the accompanying plates, which are now produced on a scale of magnitude, and with so great a degree of perfection, as regards brilliant colouring, spirited attitudes and general fidelity to nature, that leaves little further improvement in this direction to be looked for.
Its black crown has disappeared, and in general it looks like a different bird. At the present time when the dogwood blossoms are in their full perfection, and the branches and twigs of the trees are not yet hidden, but their outlines only softened by the light, feathery foliage, the tanagers and orioles have their day.
Instead of the abundant and bushy thickets of sarsaparilla, we met with nothing but stunted shrubs. However, as we approached the mountain the vegetation assumed a richer aspect, and the bare rocks no longer protruded through the soil. Here and there, tanagers, with black backs, yellow breasts, and violet-blue throats, fluttered around us; also other variegated birds of the Passerine family.
Parrots and trogons, and tanagers flashed around our heads; and the great-billed and silly-looking toucans sat silent in the branches above. The stream had become fordable, and leaving our "lair", we crossed over, and struck into the woods on the opposite side. We headed towards the National Bridge. Raoul had a friend half-way on the route an old comrade upon whom he could depend.
Several flycatchers, finches, ant-thrushes, a tribe of plainly-coloured birds, intermediate in structure between flycatchers and thrushes, some of which startle the new-comer by their extraordinary notes emitted from their places of concealment in the dense thickets; and also tanagers, and other small birds, inhabited the neighbourhood.
Blue jays and crested flycatchers were doing their best to outscream one another, with the odds in favor of the flycatchers, and a few smaller birds were singing, especially two or three summer tanagers, as many yellow-throated warblers, and a ruby-crowned kinglet.
In the woods were reddish cardinal birds, much less brilliant in plumage than the true cardinals and the scarlet tanagers; and yellow-headed titmice which had already built large domed nests. In the valley of the Nueces itself, the brush grew thick. There were great groves of pecan trees, and ever-green live-oaks stood in many places, long, wind-shaken tufts of gray moss hanging from their limbs.
At mid-day the vertical sun penetrates into the gloomy depths of this romantic spot, lighting up the leafy banks of the rivulet and its clean sandy margins, where numbers of scarlet, green, and black tanagers and brightly- coloured butterflies sport about in the stray beams.
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