Page:Bird-lore Vol 08.djvu/186

 148 Bird- Lore exhaustive work on American birds, states that 21 genera and 1 12 species are found in North and Middle America. Of these the Scarlet Tanager is the most conspicuous member of the family that is found in North America. It arrives at its summer home early in May and starts on its southward journey in the fall, late in September or early in October. As the Tanagers migrate by night, many of them become the victims of light- houses and thus give accurate records of migration dates, especially in the southward migration. It is of singular interest that the mortality occasioned by the light -stations is many times as great in the autumn as it is in the spring. What the reason for this difference is has not yet been discovered, although it may in some measure be accounted for from the fact that in the fall of the year there is more thick and misty weather than in the spring. From records made by the writer, female Tanagers were migrating north- ward past Fire Island Lighthouse as late as May 15, and the same sex were migrating southward as early as September 23, while a young bird of the year had started south as early as September 18. The latest date in the fall furnished by a lighthouse victim was a male bird killed October II. The Tanager's breeding home is anywhere in eastern United States, as far south and west as Missouri, and in the southern British provinces from Nova Scotia to Manitoba. In the winter it retires to some parts of the West Indies, and to South America as far as Peru. Audubon says that the Tanager "is very sensible to cold, so much so, NEST AND EGGS, SCARLET TANAGER Photographed by B S. Bowdish