Description.—Larger than the English Sparrow, with bill which is heavy like a sparrow’s but longer and not so conical. Adult male in summer: Bright scarlet, our brightest red bird, with black wings and tail, pale olive-green bill, and dark brown eyes. Adult female: Olive-green above, dull yellow below. Male in winter: olive-green, like the female, but with black wings and tail. Male birds in changing plumage, such as is found in late summer, are much blotched in appearance. Length: A little over 7 inches.
Range in Pennsylvania.—A common migrant and summer resident of the woodlands from late April and early May to mid-September.
Nest.—A rather shallow, thinly constructed cup made of rootlets and weed-stalks, placed from 20 to 40 feet from the ground, usually in a deciduous tree. Eggs: 3 to 6, pale blue-green, speckled with reddish brown.
Scarlet Tanager, Male
The slow, crawling movements and lazy, rather harsh, warbling song of this bird strongly suggest the tropics, its ancestral home. Its song is much like a Robin’s, but it is more alto and is harsher and lazier, and its call-note is a plainly given chi-perr, which is often more frequently heard in the damp woodlands than any other bird-note of midsummer. The intensity of the male Scarlet Tanager’s full plumage fairly takes the breath. At a distance, the dull female may suggest a vireo or a large warbler, but her movements are always characteristic of this family.
PURPLE MARTIN
Progne subis subis (Linnæus)
Description.—Larger than English Sparrow; wings long and pointed; tail moderately long and noticeably forked. Adult male: Rich purplish and bluish black, the lores velvety black; feet and bill black; eyes dark brown. Adult female: Blackish glossed with blue above; forehead, underparts, and imperfect collar around neck, gray; belly whitish. Immature birds: Like the adult female. Length: 8 inches.
Range in Pennsylvania.—A fairly common but extremely local migrant and summer resident from early or mid-April to mid-August and occasionally later.
Nest.—Made of leaves and grasses in a cavity in a tree, crevice in a building, or in a bird-house, from 12 to 40 feet from the ground. Eggs: 3 to 7, white.
Purple Martin; Barn, Rough-winged, Bank, Cliff, and Tree Swallows
Spluttering notes, some of which resemble an old-fashioned music-box, announce the return of the Martins to their accustomed nesting quarters. Gracefully, the glossy birds sail about, calling to each other, capturing insects, and perching near or upon their nest. They have almost altogether given up nesting in hollow trees and prefer to use bird-boxes, it appears, though in such towns as Waynesburg, Ligonier, and Coudersport they nest in any cranny among the buildings which they can find. Martins are very fond of dragonflies; they have the interesting habit of bringing green leaves into the nest during summer, either as new lining for the nests, to make the young birds cooler, or for some other reason. In late summer they band together, sometimes in tremendous flocks, depart for some congregating point along the New Jersey or Delaware coast, or elsewhere, and prepare for the journey to their South American winter home. Purple Martins are temperamental in choosing their nesting quarters. Certain towns do not please them, and they will not, apparently, nest; in other towns they nest anywhere.