BLUE-BIRD. 447 



spiders and grasshoppers, for which they often, in com- 

 pany with their young, in autumn, descend to the earth, 

 in open pasture fields or waste grounds. Like our 

 Thrushes, they, early in spring, also collect the common 

 wire-worm, or lulus, for food, as well as other kinds of 

 insects, which they commonly watch for, while perched 

 on the fences or low boughs of trees, and dart after them 

 to the ground as soon as perceived. They are not, how- 

 ever, flycatchers, like the Si/lvias and 3Iuscicapas, but 

 are rather industrious searchers for subsistence, like the 

 Thrushes, whose habits they wholly resemble in their 

 mode of feeding. In the autumn, they regale themselves 

 on various kinds of berries, as those of the sour gum, 

 wild cherry, and others ; and later in the season, as win- 

 ter approaches, they frequent the red cedars and several 

 species of sumach for their berries, eat persimmons in 

 the Middle States, and many other kinds of fruits, and 

 even seeds, the latter of which never enter into the diet 

 of the proper Flycatchers. They have also, occasionally, 

 in a state of confinement, been reared and fed on soaked 

 bread and vegetable diet, on which they thrive as well as 

 the Robin. 



The song of the Blue-Bird, which continues almost 

 uninterruptedly from March to October, is a soft, rather 

 feeble, but delicate and pleasing warble, often repeated 

 at various times of the day, but most frequently in early 

 spring, when the sky is serene, and the temperature mild 

 and cheering. At this season, before the earnest Robin 

 pours out his more energetic lay from the orchard tree or 

 fence-rail, the simple song of this almost domestic favor- 

 ite is heard nearly alone ; and if, at length, he be rival- 

 ed, at the dawn of day, by superior and bolder songsters, 

 he still relieves the silence of later hours, by his unwea- 

 ried and affectionate attempts to please and accompany 



