Habits. The Summer Redbird is found chiefly in the Southern States, as far north as Southern New Jersey and Illinois. Mr. Audubon speaks of their occurring in Massachusetts, but Mr. Lawrence has never known of their having been found farther north than the Magnolia Swamps near Atlantic City, N. J. One or two recent instances of the capture of these birds in Massachusetts, as also in New Brunswick and Nova Scotia, have occurred, but these must be regarded as purely accidental.
This species is said by Mr. Salvin to enjoy an almost universal range throughout Guatemala. It occurred in December at the mouth of the Rio Dulce, in the pine ridges near Quisigua, and along the whole road from Isabel to Guatemala, a distance of eighty leagues.
Mr. C. W. Wyatt met with these birds also, in all varieties of plumage, throughout Colombia, South America, at Herradura, Cocuta Valley, and Canta. Mr. Boucard obtained them at Plaza Vicente, Mexico. Dr. Woodhouse observed this species throughout the Indian Territory, Texas, and New Mexico, where it seemed solitary in its habits, frequenting the thick scrubby timber. It has been known to breed at various points in Florida, Georgia, South Carolina, Louisiana, and Texas. To the northward it breeds more or less abundantly, as far as Washington, D. C., on the east, and Southern Illinois and Kansas on the west, being much more common in the Mississippi Valley than in the States on the Atlantic in the same parallel of latitude.
Mr. Dresser found it quite common about San Antonio, Texas, during the summer season, arriving there about the middle of April, which is just about the period at which the three specimens were taken near Boston. It is comparatively rare in Pennsylvania, though abundant in the southern counties of New Jersey, and in Delaware, Eastern Maryland, and Virginia. It is also abundant in the Carolinas, in Georgia, Florida, and the Gulf States.
Wilson, in describing the nest and eggs of this species, has evidently confounded them and some of their habits with those of the Blue Grosbeak. Their eggs are not light-blue, nor are the nests, so far as I know, as described by him. Audubon and Nuttall copy substantially his errors.
The food of this species during the spring and early summer is chiefly various kinds of large coleopterous insects, bees, wasps, and others. Later in the season, when whortleberries are ripe, they feed chiefly on these and other small fruit. In taking its food it rarely alights on the ground, but prefers to capture its insects while on the wing.
The usual note of this bird, which Mr. Audubon pronounces unmusical, resembles the sounds “chicky-chucky-chuck.” The same writer states that during the spring this bird sings pleasantly for nearly half an hour in succession, that its song resembles that of the Red-eyed Vireo, and that its notes are sweeter and more varied and nearly equal to those of the Orchard Oriole.
The late Dr. Gerhardt of Varnell’s Station, in Northern Georgia, informed me that these birds are quite common in that section of country. The nest is usually built on one of the lower limbs of a post-oak, or in a pine sapling, at a height of from six to twenty feet. They are usually constructed toward the extremity of the limb, and so far from the trunk as to be very difficult of access. They are generally built from the middle to the end of May. The eggs are four in number.
In Southern Illinois, according to Mr. Ridgway, the Summer Redbird arrives about the 20th of April, staying until the last of September. It is more abundant than the Scarlet Tanager, and much less retiring in its habits,
frequenting the open groves instead of the deeper woods and the forests of the bottom-lands, being especially attached to the parks and groves within the towns. From its similarity in appearance, manners, and notes to the Scarlet Tanager, it is seldom distinguished by the common people from that bird, and those who notice the difference in color between the two generally consider this the younger stage of plumage of the black-winged species. Its song is said to be somewhat after the style of the Robin, but in a firmer tone and more continued. It differs from the song of the P. rubra in being more vigorous, and delivered in a manner less faltering. Its ordinary note of anxiety when the nest is approached is a peculiar pa-chip´it-tūt-tūt-tūt, very different from the weaker chip´-al, rā-rēē of the P. rubra. The nest is placed on a low horizontal or drooping branch, near its extremity, the tree being generally an oak, or sometimes a hickory, and situated near the roadside or at the edge of a grove. In its construction it is described as very thin, though by no means frail, permitting the eggs to be seen through the interstices from below. Mr. Ridgway never found more than three eggs in one nest.