[Illustration:  LOUISIANA TANAGER.]

“No,” said the Doctor pleasantly.  “That is a Summer Tanager—­the only one I ever saw in this neighbourhood It is so rare here that I shot it to make sure there was no mistake, and you probably never saw one alive, for the Summer Tanager is a tender bird, who seldom strays so far north as this.  But see—­what do you think of this—­isn’t it a beauty?”

So saying, the Doctor took out of his pocket a bird-skin he had provided for the occasion, and the children could not restrain their glee at the sight.

“Oh! oh!” exclaimed Dodo, clapping her hands as she always did when excited; “it’s all gold and ruby and jet.  Where did you get it, Uncle Roy?”

“A friend of mine sent it to me from Oregon,” answered the Doctor; “he thought I would like to have it for my collection, because it came from the very region where this kind of Tanager was discovered almost a hundred years ago.”

“I thought you said it was a Louisiana Tanager,” said Rap and Nat, almost in the same breath.

“So it is, boys; but it does not live in the State of Louisiana you are thinking about, down by the mouth of the Mississippi River.  I shall have to explain how it got its name by giving you a little lesson in the history and geography of our country.  A great many years ago there was a King of France called Louis the Fourteenth, and during his reign all the western parts of America that the French had discovered or acquired any claim to were named Louisiana in his honor by one of the missionaries who came over to convert the Indians to Christianity.  After a good many years more, about the beginning of this century, President Jefferson bought all this immense country from Napoleon Bonaparte, and that made it a part of the United States—­every part of them that is now ours from the Mississippi River to the Pacific Ocean, except some that we afterward took from Mexico.  President Jefferson was a very wise man, and as soon as he had bought all this land he wanted to know about it.  So he sent an expedition to explore it, under two brave captains named Lewis and Clark.  They were gone almost three years; and one day,—­I remember now, it was the sixth of June, 1806,—­when they were camping in what is now Idaho, near the border of Oregon, they found this lovely bird, and wrote a description of it in their note-books—­just as you did with your Scarlet Tanager, Dodo, only theirs was the first one anybody ever wrote.  They also saved the specimen and afterward gave it to Alexander Wilson, who painted the first picture of it, and named it the Louisiana Tanager in his book.”

“Did you ever see one alive, Uncle Roy?” asked Nat; “what does it look like flying?”

“I can answer that question,” said Olive; “don’t you remember, father, when we were in Colorado, the same year we found the Sage Thrasher and Rock Wren, that I thought the first one we saw was a Scarlet Tanager in one of its patch-work plumages, till you told me about it—­though it did seem to be too bright yellow, and the middle of the back was black.  But it looked the same size, and flew just the same.  How beautiful it looked, as it flashed its golden feathers through the dark-green pine trees!” added Olive, her face lighting up at the recollection.