The low horizon caught the opalescent desert tints merging into deep turquoise overhead. Nearby, greens, yellows and browns intermingled. The dawn was aplay with color yet the eye focused instantly on a fleck of crimson floating slowly downward and alighting on a willowtip. A ruby star strayed from his tropic home. The miniature of our Scarlet Tanager repeated the aerial with happy twitterings until his love, in the thickets below, called him to earth with impatient commands to help her in the home-building. But love could not hold him or duty stay — a twig or two and then aloft once more. There are some pictures which memory never curtains — that play of color along the desert stream — that puff of crimson floating joyously — beauty and happiness with tragedy utterly routed!
Southwestern United States. From southeastern California east thru Utah, Arizona and New Mexico to Texas.