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.
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."