442 THE BIRDS OF MAINE 



markings are thickest and largest about the larger end, while 

 other eggs are rather evenly marked all over. June tenth to 

 June thirtieth is the usual date to find eggs in Maine. 



The food of the species is quite variable. I have known 

 them to eat such things as beetles, tent-caterpillars, canker- 

 worms, larvae of Vanessa antiopa, the fat red slugs of the 

 Colorado potato beetle as well as the beetles themselves, moths 

 of various sorts, chiefly Noctuidce, and in fact almost any kind 

 of insects available. They have been frequently reported as 

 eating potato bugs and their larva?, and even feeding their 

 young on these. In season they eat various wild fruits and 

 berries such as bird cherry, choke cherry, bunch-berry, dog- 

 wood plums, arrowwood fruit, etc. Various kind of seed are 

 also eaten. In other states they have been accused of eating 

 cultivated fruit and berries but do not seem so inclined in 

 Maine, neither do they frequent localities where they would 

 have this opportunity with us. 



Genus CYANOSPIZA Baird. 



598. Cyanospiza cyanea (\An\\.^ . Indigo Bunting; Indigo 

 Bird; Indigo Painted Bunting. 



Plumage of adult male in summer : lores, wings and tail blackish, the two 

 latter margined with blue ; otherwise on upper and lower parts rich blue. 

 Plumage of adult male in winter : above the blue more or less covered up or 

 veiled by brownish; below likewise more or less concealed by a lighter shade 

 of brown ; wings and tail blackish edged with blue ; chin and abdomen near- 

 ly white ; otherwise much like adult. Plumage of females and immature : 

 above grayish brown ; wings and tail fuscous, not at all or only slightly 

 margined with bluish ; wing coverts margined with grayish brown ; below 

 whitish, washed with gray brown and streaked with brownish. Wing 2.65 ; 

 culmen 0.40 ; tail 2.25. 



Geog. Dist. — Eastern United States, west to Kansas, north to New Bruns- 

 wick, Ontario and Minnesota ; wintering in Central America. 



County Records. — Androscoggin ; fairly common summer resident, (John- 

 son). Aroostook ; seen near Caribou, (Allen, J. M. 0. S. 1901, p. 12); occa- 

 sional in southern sections, (Knight). Cumberland ; common summer resi- 

 dent, (Mead). Franklin; common summer resident, (Swain). Hancock; 

 rare, (Dorr). Kennebec ; common summer resident, (Gardiner Branch). 



