Male, two years old, in spring. Plate XII. Fig. 2.
The distribution of the colours is the same as in the adult male, but the yellow is less vivid, the upper mandible is brownish-black above, and the iris is light-brown.
Young Male, one year old, in spring. Plate XII. Fig. 1.
The bill is dark brown above, pale blue beneath. Iris brown. Feet light blue. The general colour is dull brownish-yellow, tinged with olive on the head and back. The wings are blackish-brown, the quills and large coverts margined and tipped with white. The lesser coverts are olivaceous, the tail destitute of black, and the under parts paler than in the adult, without any approach to the vivid orange tints displayed on it.
Length 7½ inches.
The Tulip-Tree.
Liriodendron tulipifera, Willd. Sp. Plant. vol. ii. p. 1254. Pursh, Flora Americ. p. 332. Mich. Abr. Forest. de l'Amer. Sept. t. iii. p. 202, Pl. v.—Polyandria Polygynia, Linn. Magnoliæ, Juss.
This tree is one of the most beautiful of those indigenous to the United States, and attains a height of seventy, eighty, or even a hundred feet. The flowers are yellow and bright red, mixed with green, and upwards of three inches in diameter. The leaves are ovate at the base, truncato-bilobate at the end, with one or two lobes on each side, all the lobes acuminate. It is generally distributed, but prefers rich soils. Its bark is smooth on the branches, cracked and fissured on the stems. The wood is yellow, hard, but easily wrought, and is employed for numerous purposes, particularly in the construction of houses, and for charcoal. The Indians often form their canoes of it, for which purpose it is well adapted, the trunk being of great length and diameter, and the wood light. In different parts of the United States, it receives the names of Poplar, White Wood, and Cane Wood.