74 



BIRDS OF AMERICA 



under tail-coverts. Young; Above, dull grayish-brown 

 tinged here and there vvfith greenish ; middle and greater 

 wing-coverts, narrovvly tipped with pale buff or buffy- 

 grayish ; under parts, dull grayish-buffy. 



Nest and Eggs. — Nest : Located in cat-claw, black- 

 berry, chajiarral or other low bushes and saplings or 

 in tall trees; a compact structure, composed of leaves, 

 twigs, grass, bark strips, and lined with fine grasses and 



liorse-hair. Eggs: 4 or 5, creamy or bluish-white, 

 spotted and blotched with reddish-brown and lavender. 

 Distribution. — Southeastern North America ; north 

 to coast of North Carolina, southern Illinois, southern 

 Kansas ; south, in winter, to Bahamas, Cuba, the whole 

 of Mexico, and through Central America to Panama; 

 west during migration to Arizona ; occasional in winter 

 in southern Louisiana and central Florida. 



The Painted Bunting is a southern bird of 

 such a quiet manner that he is not very well 

 known. He spends most of his time in the dense 

 thickets of the river bottoms, or far ofif in bushy 

 wood lots, or in the almost impenetrable tangles 

 of the steeper hillsides. Far out in the southwest 



rises to the level of sweetness, but Nonpareil does 

 not lose himself long in his song. Maybe his 

 painted and patched beauty attracts his attention 

 to himself too much. 



In Mexico he is quite a favorite cage bird. 

 .Americans along the border are therefore apt 



:;'^'SSN. 



^^"^ 



Drawing by R. I. BrashL-r 



PAINTED BUNTING 



ay be dangerous to be 



this Nonpareil ( as he is better known in the 

 West) is not quite so secretive. There he is 

 found commonly in the mesquite and in tlie 

 small brush of the river banks. 



Like the Indigo Bird he sings best in the 

 middle of the summer. But a great deal of tiie 

 singing is done from the middle of a brush pile 

 or the inside of a thicket of latu"el or even in 

 a mass of luxtiriant semitropica! weeds. Nonpar- 

 eil seems also to favor the cypress swamps. This 

 shy bird has a very sweet song resembling some- 

 what the song of the Indigo Bird. There is a 

 conciseness and feebleness about the song that 

 makes it, however, much inferior to the Indigo 

 Bird. .Sometimes there is a broken warble that 



to speak of the bird as the Mexican Canary. 

 .Strange to say, his clear, carrying voice loses, 

 none of its quality in the cage, but his varied 

 colors in time are nuich diminished. 



Like most strikingly colored male birds, the 

 Nonpareil struts before his modest colored mate 

 in the mating season. With spread wings and 

 tail he makes a very interesting picture parading 

 up and down on the ground before his mate. 



A closely allied species called the Varied 

 Bunting ( Passcriua versicolor versicolor) and 

 its variant, the Beautiful Bunting {Passcriua 

 versicolor piilchra). wander over the border from 

 Mexico into Texas and Arizona. The Varied 

 Bunting is of accidental occurrence in Michigan. 



