LAND BIRDS. 729 



it is difficult to reinstate it. Although it may continue to nest in distant 

 orchards and about the edges of woodlands, it still avoids the farm dwellings 

 and village gardens where it was formerly an abundant bird. 



The nest, wdiich is generally placed in a cavity of some kind and usually 

 at no great height from the ground, consists of grasses, feathers, and other 

 soft and fibrous materials, and is often built as early as the first week in 

 April, although more often about the middle of the month in the southern 

 half of the state. A second brood is usually reared in June or July and 

 many observers believe that a third brood is occasionally raised. The 

 eggs are four to six, of a clear pale blue, without spots, and average .82 

 by .64 inches. Occasionally the eggs laid are pure white without any 

 tint of blue, and this seems to be an individual mark, second and thirtl 

 sets from the same birds showing the same peculiarity, and this fact has 

 been used sometimes as proof that the same pair of birds return year after 

 year to the old nesting place. 



About midsummer the young of the first brood, with perhaps some of 

 the old birds, collect in loose flocks and remain together until their de- 

 parture for the south in September and October, being joined 'before 

 beginning their journe}' by the old birds and the young of the second 

 broods. At this time they frequent open fields and the borders of w^oods, 

 where thej' feed freely upon grasshoppers and other terrestrial insects 

 and also eat considerable quantities of the berries of the various sumacs, 

 as well as wild cherries, elderberries, poke-berries, huckleberries and 

 doubtless many other species. 



TECHNICAL DESCRIPTION. 



Adult male: Entire upper surface, including wings and tail, bright blue; under parts 

 ciiestnut or cinnamon-brown, except the belly, which is white. Adult female similar, 

 but the blue above and brown below duller and grayer. In autumn and winter all the 

 blue feathers are tipped with rusty and the brown feathers with gray or white. Young 

 birds at first show blue only on the wing and tail-feathers; the back is marked with dots 

 of silvery or grayish white, and the under parts are whitish, each feather bordered with 

 gray or brown. 



Length of male, r»..')0 to 7 inches; wing about 4; tail about 2.75. The female is deci^ledly 

 smaller. 



