66 MISSOURI BOTANICAL GARDEN. 



showy mate, that one would Hardly believe that they belong 

 together. All his fine colors are replaced by brownish streaked 

 with darker, and no trace of the rose color is to be seen any- 

 where, even the lining of the wing being saffron-yellow. 



. INDIGO BUNTING. Cyanospiza cyanea. 



This bird, or rather the male Indigo Bird, is often con- 

 founded with the Bluebird, but it is blue all over, while our 

 Bluebird has the underparts cinnamon and white. The female 

 Indigo Bird is entirely brown. Young males in their first 

 spring, i. e. not yet fully one year old, are of a queer mixture 

 of blue and brown at the time of their arrival in early May, 

 but, being mature, they breed, and change to the full adult 

 plumage during tho summer. The male Indigo Bird is quite 

 a songster, but not c great artist, being too hurried in the de- 

 Hvery to give much expression to his song, which consists 

 only of a few bars. Often even this is too much for him and 

 he breaks off abruptly after the first bar. While it fills well a 

 place in Nature and is rendered with great liberality at times 

 when all other feathered musicians are silent, namely in the 

 noonday heat of midsummer, the monotonous repetition be- 

 comes rather tiresome. But, as with all bird songs, there is 

 an astonishing individual diversity, and it requires sometimes 

 close attention even for the trained car to recognize the orig- 

 inator of the queer strains as our well-known Indigo Bunting. 

 In the choice of location the species is not particular; almost 

 any kind of surrounding will do, as long as it has some shrub- 

 bery to conceal its nest, and even this is not absolutely neces- 

 sary as nests are sometimes placed in trees twenty feet from 

 the ground. In the bird community of the Garden the Indigo 

 Bird is represented by only one pair, but with the extension 

 and growth of shrubbery an increase in their number will un- 

 doubtedly follow, as all other conditions for a desirable abode 

 are given. The species is one of the most common and best 

 distributed summer residents in Missouri, and in extent of 

 its breeding range is equalled by few other birds, as it reaches 

 from the Gulf to Canada and from the Plains to the Atlantic. 

 This abundance can perhaps be explained by the protective 



