Length -- 7.5 inches. About one-fourth smaller than the robin.
Male -- Uniform red. Wings and tail like the body.
Female -- Upper parts yellowish olive-green; underneath inclining
to orange-yellow.
Range -- Tropical portions of two Americas and eastern United
States. Most common in Southern States. Rare north of
Pennsylvania. Winters in the tropics. Mirations -- In Southern
States: April. October. Irregular migrant north of the
Carolinas.
Thirty years ago, it is recorded that so far north as New Jersey the summer
redbird was quite as common as any of the thrushes. In the South still there
is scarcely an orchard that does not contain this tropical-looking beauty --
the redbird par excellence, the sweetest singer of the family. Is there a more
beautiful sight in all nature than a grove of orange trees laden with fruit,
starred with their delicious blossoms, and with flocks of redbirds disporting
themselves among the dark, glossy leaves? Pine and oak woods are also favorite
resorts, especially at the north, where the bird nowadays forsakes the
orchards to hide his beauty, if he can, unharmed by the rifle that only rarely
is offered so shining a mark. He shows the scarlet tanager's preference for
tree-tops, where his musical voice, calling "Chicky-tucky-tuk," alone betrays
his presence in the woods. The Southern farmers declare that he is an
infallible weather prophet, his "wet, WET, WET," being the certain indication
of rain -- another absurd saw, for the call-note is by no means confined to
the rainy season.
The yellowish-olive mate, whose quiet colors betray no nest secrets, collects
twigs and grasses for the cradle to be saddled on the end of some horizontal
branch, though in this work the male sometimes cautiously takes an
insignificant part. After her three or four eggs are laid she sits upon them
for nearly two weeks, being only rarely and stealthily visited by her mate
with some choice grub, blossom, or berry in his beak. But how cheerfully his
fife-like whistle rings out during the temporary exile! Then his song is at
its best. Later in the summer he has an aggravating way of joining in the
chorus of other birds' songs, by which the pleasant individuality of his own
voice is lost.
A nest of these tanagers, observed not far from New York City, was commenced
the last week of May on the extreme edge of a hickory limb in an open wood;
four eggs were laid on the fourth of June, and twelve days later the tiny
fledglings, that all look like their mother in the early stages of their
existence, burst from the greenish-white, speckled shells. In less than a
month the young birds were able to fly quite well and collect their food.