Southern readers will know also another kind of tanager, not red and black, but red all over. He, too, is a great beauty, although if the question were left to me, I could not give him the palm over his more northern relative. The red of the southern bird is of a different shade—“rose-red” or “vermilion,” the books call it. He sings like the scarlet tanager, but in a smoother voice. Although he is a red bird, he is not to be confounded with the southern red-bird. The latter, better known as the cardinal grosbeak, is a thick-billed bird of the sparrow and finch family. He is frequently seen in cages, and is a royal whistler.
The scarlet tanager—the male in red and black plumage—is not to be mistaken for anything else in the Eastern States. Once see him, and you will always know him. For that reason he is an excellent subject for the beginner. He passes the winter in Central or South America, and returns to New England in the second week of May. He makes his appearance in full dress, but later in the season changes it for one resembling pretty closely the duller plumage of his mate.
VII
THE SONG SPARROW
Sparrows are of many kinds, and in a general way the different kinds look so much alike that the beginner in bird study is apt to find them confusing, if not discouraging. They will try his patience, no matter how sharp and clever he may think himself, and unless he is much cleverer than the common run of humanity, he will make a good many mistakes before he gets to the end of them.
One of the best and commonest of them all is the song sparrow. His upper parts are mottled, of course, since he is a sparrow. His light-colored breast is sharply streaked, and in the middle of it the streaks usually run together and form a blotch. His outer tail-feathers are not white, and there is no yellow on the wings or about the head. These last points are mentioned in order to distinguish him from two other sparrows with streaked breasts—the vesper sparrow and the savanna.
SONG SPARROW
1. Male. 2. Female
By the middle of March song sparrows reach New England in crowds,—along with robins and red-winged blackbirds,—and are to be heard singing on all hands, especially in the neighborhood of water. They remain until late autumn, and here and there one will be found even in midwinter.
The song, for which this sparrow is particularly distinguished, is a bright and lively strain, nothing very great in itself, perhaps, but thrice welcome for being heard so early in the season, when the ear is hungry after the long winter silence. Its chief distinction, however, is its amazing variety. Not only do no two birds sing precisely alike, but the same bird sings many tunes.
Of this latter fact, which I have known some excellent people to be skeptical about, you can readily satisfy yourself,—and there is nothing like knowing a thing at first hand,—if you will take the pains to keep a singer under your eye at the height of the musical season. You will find that he repeats one strain for perhaps a dozen times, without the change of a note; then suddenly he comes out with a song entirely different. This second song he will in turn drop for a third, and so on. The bird acts, for all the world, as if he were singing hymns, of so many verses each, one after another.