INDIGO BIRD. 475 



by the sides of the road ; but their fayorite resort is the 

 garden, where, from the topmost bough of some tall tree, 

 which commands the whole wide landscape, the male 

 regularly pours out his lively chant, and continues it for 

 a considerable lenorth of time. Nor is this sons^ confined 

 to the cool and animating dawn of morning, but it is 

 renewed and still more vigorous during the noon-day 

 heat of summer. This lively strain seems composed of 

 a repetition of short notes, commencing loud and rapid, 

 and then, slowly falling, they descend almost to a whisp- 

 er, succeeded by a silent interval of about half a minute, 

 when the song is again continued as before. The most 

 common of these vocal expressions sounds like tshe tshe 

 tsJie — tshe tsliec tsliee — tshe tshe tshe. The middle sylla- 

 bles are uttered lispingly in a very peculiar manner, and 

 the three last gradually fall ; sometimes it is varied and 

 shortened into tshea tshca tshea tshrhh, the last sound 

 being sometimes doubled. This shorter song is usually 

 uttered at the time that the female is enoracred in the 

 cares of incubation, or as the brood already appear, and 

 when too great a display of his music might endanger 

 the retiring security of his family. From a young or 

 imperfectly moulted male, on the summit of a weeping 

 willow, I heard the following singularly lively syllables, 

 tie tie tie td lee, repeated at short intervals. While thus 

 prominently exposed to view, the little airy minstrel is 

 continually on the watch against any surprise, and if he be 

 steadily looked at or hearkened to with visible attention, 

 in the next instant he is off to seek out some securer ele- 

 vation. In the village of Cambridge, I have seen one of 

 these azure, almost celestial musicians, regularly chant 

 to the inmates of a tall dwelling-house from the summit of 

 the chimney, or the point of the forked lightning-rod. I 

 have also heard a Canary, within hearing, repeat and 



