THE TANAGER PEOPLE
"Magic bird, but rarely seen,
Phœnix in our forest green,
Plumed with fire, and quick as flame--
Phœnix, else thou hast no name."
It is a large tribe, of numerous species in America, but the scarlet
tanager alone may well be termed the Red Man of the forest. Native of
the New World, shy, a gypsy in his way, harmless to agriculture, a
hunter by nature, fascinating to all eyes that light on him.
It is as if Nature had a surplus of red and black the day she
painted him, and was determined to dip her brush in nothing else.
This contrast of color has made him one of our most familiar birds.
But, as with many another of striking hue, the scarlet tanager has
an indifferent song. Among our flowers like the scarlet geraniums
and hibiscus, we do not look for the fragrance that distinguishes
the pale violet or wild rose. It is as if the bright tint of bird
or blossom is sufficient of itself, and nature would not bestow all
virtues upon one individual.
Still the musical qualities of this tanager are not to be despised.
His few notes may be almost monotonous, but they are pensive, even
tender when addressed to his dear companion, for whom his little
breast holds warm affection. She, too, at nesting-time, utters the
same pensive note, and the two may be noticed in the treetops,
whispering to one another in low tones.
It is not for his song, therefore, that we seek the bird, but
hearing the song, we would see the singer. And who can blame us? We
love the deeper tints of sunset and sunrise, the red and yellow of
autumn leaves, the red glow of the prairie fire, the tint of the
Baldwin apple and the sops o' wine. A tree of dull green apples
in the orchard, though of finer flavor, will be neglected, more
especially by the "wandering boy," for its crimson-cheeked neighbor
of indifferent relish. The red apples of the naked winter bough, left
on purpose for Jack Frost and the birds to bite, are said to allure
the latter before the paler fruit of the next tree is disturbed.
Therefore, when a nature-lover wanders into the woods in dreamy
mood and the scarlet tanager flits above him amid the green of the
foliage, the thrush and the sparrow are forgotten.
The tanager is discreet by nature, for it is as if he knows that by
glimpses only is he best appreciated. Were he less retiring, as bold
in habit as in color, sitting on the roofs and fence-posts, swinging
the nest pendant from boughs, like the oriole, he would be less
fascinating. But the tanager is seldom more than half seen; he is
detected for an instant, like a flash, and disappears.
It is with the eye as with the hand. We would hold in the grasp of
our fingers what we covet to touch or own. And the eye would retain
in its deep fortress, if only for a moment, the tint it feasts on.
More especially is this the case if the thing we would hold or see is
transitory by nature.
[Illustration: SUMMER TANAGER.]
So when we sit down on a half-decayed log bedecked with toadstools,
and hear the note of a scarlet tanager overhead, we listen and are
moveless. It is repeated, and if we are unacquainted with the bird we
may think him to the right of us. Actually he is on the left, being
endowed with the gift of ventriloquism. By this gift or attainment
the beautiful creature eludes his human foes. For foes the tanager
surely has, the more's the pity! Not content to adore the bird as
part and parcel of generous nature, there are those who would pay
their homage to the wings only, set among feathers and plaited straw.
Such lose the fine art of tenderness. The face that would pale at
sight of a brown mouse shines with pride beneath a remnant of red
plumage literally dyed with the life-blood of their original owner.
"Angelina has a hat
With wings on every side;
Slaughter o' the innocents
Those pretty wings supplied.
Sign of barbarity,
Sign of vulgarity--
That winged hat."
Well, let Angelina's hat pass for what it is worth to her. It is no
more than the redbirds have had to submit to all their life history.
There isn't a savage tribe but has made use of bright feathers for
dress, either in skins or quills. The dark-skinned native is "dressed
for church" if he wear a single feather tuft in his scalp-lock, or a
frail shoulder-cape of crimson breasts, stripped from the bird in the
bush.
It may be the tanager has a sort of dull instinct to hide himself
on this account in the deep foliage, deeming it the better part of
valor to keep out of harm's way when a nature-lover sits on the
toadstool-bedecked log to watch for him.
His mate, of dull greenish yellow, has less enemies in the disguise
of admirers, and her little heart has no call to flutter when the
so-called nature-lover haunts the woods. She goes on with her
nest-building on the arm of a maple or even lonely apple-tree, making
haste, for well she knows the season is short in which to raise
their single brood. By the middle of August they must be off, have
the wings of the young grown sufficient strength; and yet the old
birds only arrived from their warmer clime in the South when May was
half over, or later.
Like the grosbeak's, the tanager's nest is loosely built of twigs and
stalks, transparent from below, as if ventilation were more necessary
than softness. The dull blue eggs, spotted with brown or purple, may
be distinctly seen from beneath when the sun is shining overhead. But
why worry the mother bird by long gazing? She is in great distress.
Were the ear of the nature-lover properly tuned he would understand
her to be saying, "They're mine, they're mine. I beg, I beg. Don't
touch, don't take."
But in due time the young are juveniles, not nurslings, and they
leave the nest, too soon the worse for wear on account of its
careless build. At first the thin dress of the young is greenish
yellow, like the mother, and they may pass unnoticed amid the
late summer foliage. The male juveniles, during their first year,
somewhere change to brighter hues in spots and dashes of red and
black, as if their clothes had been patched with left-overs from
their fathers' wardrobes. The fathers themselves, before they fly to
the warm South, drop their scarlet feathers, like tatters, amid the
ferns and blue-berries, and girls pick them up for the adorning of
doll hats. No merrier sight, and none more innocent of character,
than this of little girls searching for what is left of the beautiful
summer visitor, picking up, as it were, the shreds of his memory.
These scarlet feathers, together with those of the summer yellowbird,
placed in layers or helter-skelter in a case of gauze, make a
fairy pillow for winter times, pretty to look at. They come with
thistle-down and milkweed tassels, and sumach droppings and maple
leaves, and the first oozing of spruce gum in the woods. Yes, and
beechnuts and belated goldenrod, and the first frosts that nip the
cheek of the cranberry in the bog.
And the huckleberry patch is littered with the tiny plumes, for
tanagers love the huckleberries that leave no stain on their greenish
yellow lips. These huckleberries are their chief food in late
berry-time, coming, as they do, when the juveniles need a change in
their meat diet before the long flight ahead of them. Up to this
date they made good, square meals from fat beetles and other insects
big enough to "pay for catching." That bumblebees and wasps are
endowed with sharp points in their character does not forbid the use
of them for tanager food; though it is presumed that the stings are
either squeezed out, or the insect killed, before it is fed to the
nestlings, as we have noticed in the case of the phœbes.
In these late summer days the singer punctuates his song often and
long, for he must recuperate for his autumn journey. More than this,
he must protect his young ones. He therefore loses the shyness of
spring, and follows the juveniles about, feeding them and teaching
them to shift for themselves, and protecting them with word and
sign. His whole care is for his family, and hard is a cruel world
indeed whose human inhabitants can molest him. His scarlet cloth is
forgotten. He will follow his young even into captivity, and there
feed them through bar or window. But not a fascinating prisoner is
the tanager; one grows accustomed to his bright coat, and as it is
seen against the pane in winter-time, contrasting with the whiteness
of the snow, seems to reproach the hand that imprisoned it. When one
stops to think of it, scarcely a bird in captivity, unless it be
the canary to the manner born, gives the satisfaction and amusement
anticipated. It is the going and coming of the wild birds that make
more than half the fun. The sudden surprise of spring; the reluctant
departure of autumn, with the hope of intermediate days--there is
charm in all this keeping of Nature's order.
Well, good by, sweet scarlet tanager. Sing us back your farewell note
of "Wait, wait." We shall see you again when the early cherries are
ripe, if not sooner. The beetles and bumbles and the grasshoppers
will be watching out for you, and the terrible hornet shall double
his armor-plate to suit the strength of your strong beak. It will be
of no avail for the big black beetle to hide beneath the iron kettle
he carries on his back, and the bum of the big, yellow bumblebee will
serve only as its call-note, while the broad sword of the hornet will
have no time to unsheath itself at sight of you. Good by, tanager.