Identifier: birdneighborsint00blacha (find matches)
Title: Bird neighbors : an introductory acquaintance with one hundred and fifty birds commonly found in the gardens, meadows, and woods about our homes
Year: 1899 (1890s)
Authors: Blanchan, Neltje, 1865-1918
Subjects: Birds
Publisher: New York : Doubleday & McClure
Contributing Library: Smithsonian Libraries
Digitizing Sponsor: Smithsonian Libraries

View Book Page: Book Viewer
About This Book: Catalog Entry
View All Images: All Images From Book
Click here to view book online to see this illustration in context in a browseable online version of this book.

Text Appearing Before Image:
of the commonest of bird neighbors, it is now shyand solitary. An ideal resort for it is a grove of oak or swampmaple near a stream or pond where it can bathe. Evergreentrees, too, are favorites, possibly because the bird knows howexquisitely its bright scarlet coat is set off by their dark back-ground. High in the tree-tops he perches, all unsuspected by the vis-itor passing through the woods below, until a burst of rich, sweetmelody directs the opera-glasses suddenly upward. There wedetect him carolling loud and cheerfully, like a robin. He is anapparition of beauty-—a veritable bird of paradise, as, indeed, heis sometimes called. Because of their similar coloring, the tana-ger and cardinal are sometimes confounded, but an instantscomparison of the two birds shows nothing in common exceptred feathers, and even those of quite different shades. The incon-spicuous olive-green and yellow of the female tanagers plumageis another striking instance of Natures unequal distribution of 218
Text Appearing After Image:
■M .■y.-t;--^: Conspicuously Red of any Shade gifts; but if our bright-colored birds have become shocltinglyfew under existing conditions, would any at all remain were thefemales prominent, like the males, as they brood upon the nest ?Both tanagers construct a rather disorderly-looking nest of fibresand sticks, through which daylight can be seen where it restssecurely upon the horizontal branch of some oak or pine tree;but as soon as three or four bluish-green eggs have been laidin the cradle, off goes the father, wearing his tell-tale coat, toa distant tree. There he sings his sweetest carol to the patient,brooding mate, returning to her side only long enough to feedher with the insects and berries that form their food. Happily for the young birds fate, they are clothed at first inmotley, dull colors, with here and there only a bright touch ofscarlet, yellow, and olive to prove their claim to the parent whosegorgeous plumage must be their admiration. But after the moult-ing seaso

Note About Images