158 Sketches of Some Common Birds. 



its head proudly toward the unclouded blue, of which its 

 dress appears to be a fragment, it pours forth its little 

 roundels of joy with freedom and animation. In my 

 younger days, the indigo bird a-top of the apple tree in 

 the garden was a regular feature of the heated summer 

 noontime, and somehow I then formed the notion that it 

 comes among us only in the glare and brilliance of the 

 midsummer; but I afterward learned that it takes the 

 brightest sunshine to develop both its melody and its 

 rich beauty of plumage. 



One day I had a good opportunity to observe the 

 splendid colors of a male indigo bird. While I was stand- 

 ing in my garden almost concealed by the rank vegetation 

 which had grown rapidly during my absence, a male of 

 the species dropped upon an oblique spike of the blossom 

 of a convenient cornstalk, and there in the brilliant sun- 

 shine he quietly sat and allowed me to observe him at 

 length. The term indigo is weak in expressing the rich- 

 ness and warmth of the deep ultramarine blue displayed 

 by the plumage of the head, neck, shoulders, and upper 

 back; and the darker bluish-green of the lower back and 

 tail was far from the dead hue of indigo. It seemed to 

 me that the tropical sun could develop colors no brighter 

 nor more beautiful than adorn our little indigo bird, and 

 the little fellow appears to know that it needs the strong 

 sunlight to reflect the beauty of his coat. Seen in the 

 shade or at a distance, the dead blue predominates in his 

 color, and then he is called the " blue linnet," while in 

 other lights the green is more prominent, and hence he is 

 designated as the ''green linnet" or "green bird." 



The summer home of the indigo bunting is eastern 

 United States, extending northward into Canada, and 

 westward to the edge of the great plains, breeding chiefly 

 north of the Gulf States. Its winter home is Cuba, east- 

 ern Mexico, and Central America. The first individuals 

 oF the species appear among us on the spring migration 

 about the end of the third week of April, lacking some of 

 the old confidence at first appearance, but soon acquiring 

 spirit and animation. They are emphatically birds of the 

 bushes wherever found, preferring the bushy borders of 

 streams with a narrow fringing of woods, or the edges of 



