CHAPTER XI

THE TANAGER PEOPLE

"Magic bird, but rarely seen, Phœnix in our forest green, Plumed with fire, and quick as flame-- Phœnix, else thou hast no name."

It is a large tribe, of numerous species in America, but the scarlet tanager alone may well be termed the Red Man of the forest. Native of the New World, shy, a gypsy in his way, harmless to agriculture, a hunter by nature, fascinating to all eyes that light on him.

It is as if Nature had a surplus of red and black the day she painted him, and was determined to dip her brush in nothing else. This contrast of color has made him one of our most familiar birds. But, as with many another of striking hue, the scarlet tanager has an indifferent song. Among our flowers like the scarlet geraniums and hibiscus, we do not look for the fragrance that distinguishes the pale violet or wild rose. It is as if the bright tint of bird or blossom is sufficient of itself, and nature would not bestow all virtues upon one individual.

Still the musical qualities of this tanager are not to be despised. His few notes may be almost monotonous, but they are pensive, even tender when addressed to his dear companion, for whom his little breast holds warm affection. She, too, at nesting-time, utters the same pensive note, and the two may be noticed in the treetops, whispering to one another in low tones.

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.

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."

Well, let Angelina's hat pass for what it is worth to her. It is no more than the redbirds have had to submit to all their life history. There isn't a savage tribe but has made use of bright feathers for dress, either in skins or quills. The dark-skinned native is "dressed for church" if he wear a single feather tuft in his scalp-lock, or a frail shoulder-cape of crimson breasts, stripped from the bird in the bush.

It may be the tanager has a sort of dull instinct to hide himself on this account in the deep foliage, deeming it the better part of valor to keep out of harm's way when a nature-lover sits on the toadstool-bedecked log to watch for him.

His mate, of dull greenish yellow, has less enemies in the disguise of admirers, and her little heart has no call to flutter when the so-called nature-lover haunts the woods. She goes on with her nest-building on the arm of a maple or even lonely apple-tree, making haste, for well she knows the season is short in which to raise their single brood. By the middle of August they must be off, have the wings of the young grown sufficient strength; and yet the old birds only arrived from their warmer clime in the South when May was half over, or later.

Like the grosbeak's, the tanager's nest is loosely built of twigs and stalks, transparent from below, as if ventilation were more necessary than softness. The dull blue eggs, spotted with brown or purple, may be distinctly seen from beneath when the sun is shining overhead. But why worry the mother bird by long gazing? She is in great distress. Were the ear of the nature-lover properly tuned he would understand her to be saying, "They're mine, they're mine. I beg, I beg. Don't touch, don't take."

But in due time the young are juveniles, not nurslings, and they leave the nest, too soon the worse for wear on account of its careless build. At first the thin dress of the young is greenish yellow, like the mother, and they may pass unnoticed amid the late summer foliage. The male juveniles, during their first year, somewhere change to brighter hues in spots and dashes of red and black, as if their clothes had been patched with left-overs from their fathers' wardrobes. The fathers themselves, before they fly to the warm South, drop their scarlet feathers, like tatters, amid the ferns and blue-berries, and girls pick them up for the adorning of doll hats. No merrier sight, and none more innocent of character, than this of little girls searching for what is left of the beautiful summer visitor, picking up, as it were, the shreds of his memory. These scarlet feathers, together with those of the summer yellowbird, placed in layers or helter-skelter in a case of gauze, make a fairy pillow for winter times, pretty to look at. They come with thistle-down and milkweed tassels, and sumach droppings and maple leaves, and the first oozing of spruce gum in the woods. Yes, and beechnuts and belated goldenrod, and the first frosts that nip the cheek of the cranberry in the bog.

And the huckleberry patch is littered with the tiny plumes, for tanagers love the huckleberries that leave no stain on their greenish yellow lips. These huckleberries are their chief food in late berry-time, coming, as they do, when the juveniles need a change in their meat diet before the long flight ahead of them. Up to this date they made good, square meals from fat beetles and other insects big enough to "pay for catching." That bumblebees and wasps are endowed with sharp points in their character does not forbid the use of them for tanager food; though it is presumed that the stings are either squeezed out, or the insect killed, before it is fed to the nestlings, as we have noticed in the case of the phœbes.

In these late summer days the singer punctuates his song often and long, for he must recuperate for his autumn journey. More than this, he must protect his young ones. He therefore loses the shyness of spring, and follows the juveniles about, feeding them and teaching them to shift for themselves, and protecting them with word and sign. His whole care is for his family, and hard is a cruel world indeed whose human inhabitants can molest him. His scarlet cloth is forgotten. He will follow his young even into captivity, and there feed them through bar or window. But not a fascinating prisoner is the tanager; one grows accustomed to his bright coat, and as it is seen against the pane in winter-time, contrasting with the whiteness of the snow, seems to reproach the hand that imprisoned it. When one stops to think of it, scarcely a bird in captivity, unless it be the canary to the manner born, gives the satisfaction and amusement anticipated. It is the going and coming of the wild birds that make more than half the fun. The sudden surprise of spring; the reluctant departure of autumn, with the hope of intermediate days--there is charm in all this keeping of Nature's order.

Well, good by, sweet scarlet tanager. Sing us back your farewell note of "Wait, wait." We shall see you again when the early cherries are ripe, if not sooner. The beetles and bumbles and the grasshoppers will be watching out for you, and the terrible hornet shall double his armor-plate to suit the strength of your strong beak. It will be of no avail for the big black beetle to hide beneath the iron kettle he carries on his back, and the bum of the big, yellow bumblebee will serve only as its call-note, while the broad sword of the hornet will have no time to unsheath itself at sight of you. Good by, tanager.