BLUE-BIRD. 449 



Confident in this protection, he shows but little alarm for 

 his undisturbed tenement; while, in the remote orchard, 

 expecting no visitor but an enemy, in company with his 

 anxious mate, he bewails the approach of the intruder, and 

 flying round his head and hands, appears, by his actions, 

 to call down all danger upon himself rather than suffer 

 any injury to arrive to his helpless brood. 



Towards autumn, in the month of October, his cheerful 

 song nearly ceases, or is now changed into a single plain- 

 tive note of tshdy-iuit, while he passes with his flitting 

 companions over the fading woods ; and as his song first 

 brought the welcome intelligence of spring, so now his mel- 

 ancholy plaint presages, but too truly, the silent and 

 mournful decay of nature. Even when the leaves have fal- 

 len, and the forest no longer affords a shelter from the 

 blast, the faithful Blue-Bird still lingers over his native 

 fields, and only takes his departure in November, when, at 

 a considerable elevation, in the early twilight of the morn- 

 ing, till the opening of the day, they wing their way in 

 small roving troops to some milder regions in the South. 

 But yet, after this period, in the Middle States, with every 

 return of moderate weather, we hear his sad note in the 

 fields, or in the air, as if deploring the ravages of winter ; 

 and so frequent are his visits, that he may be said to 

 follow fair weather through all his wanderings till the 

 permanent return of spring. 



The Blue-Bird is about 7^ inches long. The wings remarkably full 

 and broad. Above a rich sky-blue. Inner vanes of the quills and their 

 shafls dusky, the outer blue. Beneath ferruginous ; belly and vent 

 white. Bill and legs black. Inside of the mouth and soles of the 

 feet yellow; the claws very sharp. Iris golden. — The female is of 

 much duller colors both above and beneath ; the whole back and 

 head, except the wings, is almost of a lead-color, with faint tints 

 only of blue. — From an accidental injury to the upper mandible, 1 

 have seen a specimen in which the bill was much lengthened and 

 nearly crossed as in the Loxia. 



38* 



