(_Piranga rubra_) Tanager family
_Called also_: REDBIRD; SMOOTH-HEADED REDBIRD
_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.
_Migrations_--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.
[Illustration: MOTHER OVENBIRD IN NEST; A BABY BIRD ON IT.]
[Illustration: THE ROBIN'S MUD-WALLED NURSERY]