Summer Red Bird

Summer Red Bird [now Summer Tanager]
Tanagra aestiva Gmelin [now Piranga rubra] 
Folio edition, plate 44

“This beautiful species is destitute of song, and is of solitary habits. . . . The vine on which you see them is usually called the Muscadine. It grows everywhere in Louisiana. . . . In favourable seasons, they are laden with grapes. . . . The skin is thick and very tough, the pulp glutinous, but so peculiarly flavoured as to be very agreeable to the taste. These grapes are eaten by most people, although an idea prevails, in Lower Louisiana particularly, that the eating of them gives rise to bilious fevers. For my part, I can well say, that the more I have eaten of them the better I have found myself.”

John James Audubon, Ornithological Biography, or An Account of the Habits of the Birds of the United States of America (Edinburgh: A. Black [et al.], 1831), vol. 1, p. 232-234.

View bird in National Audubon Society Guide to North American Birds.