_Tanagra rubra_, LINN. I, 1766, 314.—GMELIN, I, 1788, 889.—WILSON,
Am. Orn. II, 1810, 42; pl. xi, f. 3, 4.—AUD. Orn. Biog. IV, 1838,
388; pl. cccliv. _Pyranga rubra_, VIEILLOT, Ois. Am. Sept. I,
1807, iv; pl. i, f. 12 (Head.).—SWAINSON, F. Bor. Am. II, 1831,
273.—BON. List. 1838.—IB. Conspectus, 1850.—AUD. Syn. 1839,
136.—IB. Birds Am. II, 1841, 226; pl. ccix.—SCLATER, Pr. Zoöl.
Soc. 1855, 156.—IB. 1856, 123.—MAX. Cab. Jour. VI, 1858,
270.—SAMUELS, 251. _Phœnisoma rubra_, SW. Birds, II, 1837, 284.
_Phœnicosoma rubra_, CAB. Mus. Hein. 1851, 24. _Pyranga
erythromelas_, VIEILLOT, “Encyc. Méth. 800.”—IB. Nouv. Dict.
XXVIII, 1817, 293.
SP. CHAR. Bill shorter than the head. Second quill longest; first and
third a little shorter. Tail moderately forked. _Male._ Whole head and
body continuous, pure, intense scarlet, the feathers white beneath the
surface, and grayish at the roots. Wings and tail, with the scapulars,
uniform intense black; the middle-coverts sometimes partly red,
forming an interrupted band. Lining of wing white. A blackish tinge
along sides of the rump, concealed by wings. Bill pea-green; iris
brown; tarsi and toes dull blue. _Female._ Olive-green above,
yellowish beneath. Wing and tail feathers brown, edged with
olivaceous. Length, 7.40; wing, 4.00; tail, 3.00.
_Hab._ Eastern Province North America, north to Winnepeg (west to El
Paso? HEERMANN). In winter, south to Ecuador (Rio Napo, SCL.). Bogota
(SCL.) Cuba (SCL. & GUNDL.); Jamaica (SCL. & GOSSE); Panama (LAWR.);
Costa Rica (LAWR.); Vera Cruz (winter, SUMICHRAST).
[Illustration: _Pyranga ludoviciana._]
At least three years seem to be required for the assumption of the
perfect plumage of the male. In the first year the young male is like
the female, but has black wings and tail; in the fall red feathers
begin to make their appearance, and the following spring the red
predominates in patches.
HABITS. The Scarlet Tanager is one of the most conspicuous and
brilliant of all our summer visitants. Elegant in its attire, retiring
and modest in manners, sweet in song, and useful in its destruction of
hurtful insects, it well merits a cordial welcome. This Tanager is
distributed over a wide extent of territory, from Texas to Maine, and
from South Carolina to the northern shores of Lake Huron, in all which
localities it breeds. A few are found once in a while as far east as
Calais, in the spring, and they are rather occasional than common in
Eastern Massachusetts, but are more plentiful in the western part of
the State, becoming quite common about Springfield, arriving May 15,
and remaining about four months, breeding in high open woods and old
orchards. In South Carolina it is abundant as a migrant, though a few
remain and breed in the higher lands. Mr. Audubon states, also, that a
few breed in the higher portions of Louisiana, and Dr. Heermann found
them breeding at El Paso, in New Mexico. They are far more abundant,
however, in the States of Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Virginia, and
throughout the Mississippi Valley, arriving early in May, and leaving
in October. Though occasionally found in the more sparsely settled
portions of the country, in orchards and retired gardens, they are, as
a rule, inhabitants of the edges of forests.
Their more common notes are simple and brief, resembling, according to
Wilson, the sounds _chip-charr_. Mr. Ridgway represents them by
_chip-a-ra´-ree_. This song it repeats at brief intervals and in a
pensive tone, and with a singular faculty of causing it to seem to
come from a greater than the real distance. Besides this it also has a
more varied and musical chant resembling the mellow notes of the
Baltimore Oriole. The female also utters similar notes when her nest
is approached, and in their mating-season, as they move together
through the branches, they both utter a low whispering warble in a
tone of great sweetness and tenderness. As a whole, this bird may be
regarded as a musical performer of very respectable merits.
The food of this species is chiefly gleaned among the upper branches,
and consists of various coleopterous and other insects and their
larvæ. Later in the season they consume various kinds of wild berries.
When their nest is approached, the male bird usually keeps at a
cautious distance, as if fearful of being seen, but his much less
gaudy mate hovers about the intruder in the greatest distress. Wilson
relates quite a touching instance of the devotion of the parent of
this species to its young. Having taken a young bird from the nest,
and carried it to his friend, Mr. Bartram, it was placed in a cage,
and suspended near a nest containing young Orioles, in hopes the
parents of the latter would feed it, which they did not do. Its cries,
however, attracted its own parent, who assiduously attended it and
supplied it with food for several days, became more and more
solicitous for its liberation, and constantly uttered cries of
entreaty to its offspring to come out of its prison. At last this was
more than Mr. Bartram could endure, and he mounted to the cage, took
out the prisoner, and restored it to its parent, who accompanied it in
its flight to the woods with notes of great exultation.
Early in August the male begins to moult, and in the course of a few
days, dressed in the greenish livery of the female, he is not
distinguishable from her or his young family. In this humble garb they
leave us, and do not resume their summer plumage until just as they
are re-entering our southern borders, when they may be seen in various
stages of transformation.
This species is extremely susceptible to cold, and in late and
unusually chilly seasons large numbers often perish in their more
northern haunts, as Massachusetts and Northern New York.
The nests of the Scarlet Tanager are built late in May, or early in
June, on the horizontal branch of a forest tree, usually on the edge
of a wood, but occasionally in an orchard. They are usually very
nearly flat, five or six inches in diameter, and about two in height,
with a depression of only about half an inch. They are of somewhat
irregular shape, or not quite symmetrically circular. Their base is
somewhat loosely constructed of coarse stems of vegetables, strips of
bark, and the rootlets of wooded plants. Upon this is wrought, with
more compactness and neatness, a framework, within which is the
lining, of long slender fibrous roots, interspersed with which are
slender stems of plants and a few strips of fine inner bark.
Mr. Nuttall describes a nest examined by him as composed of rigid
stalks of weeds and slender fir-twigs tied together with narrow strips
of _Apocynum_ and pea-vine runners, and lined with slender wiry stalks
of the _Helianthemum_, the whole so thinly plaited as readily to admit
the light through the interstices.
The eggs, four or five in number, vary in length from an inch to .90,
and have an average breadth of .65. Their ground-color varies from a
well-marked shade of greenish-blue, to a dull white with hardly the
least tinge of blue. The spots vary in size, are more or less
confluent, and are chiefly of a reddish or rufous brown, intermingled
with a few spots of a brownish and obscure purple.
Pyranga ludoviciana, BONAP.