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."