The Birds and Poets 119 



dumb and exhausted with the heat. Some of its 

 notes resemble the wiry, tenuous notes of the 

 goldfinch, but in general its song is much louder 

 and more open and warbler-like, and may be 

 suggested by "ch-ree! ch-ree! ch-ree! ch-ree! 

 ch-rah! rap-rep!" often ending with a jumble of 

 confused notes wholly untranslatable. 



It feeds largely upon seeds, after the manner 

 of the goldfinch, and is readily reared in a cage 

 on the diet of the canary. 



When nesting the male bird may be seen for 

 hours at a time perched upon a telephone wire or 

 low tree or shrub, singing joyously to its mate on 

 the nest near by. 



It would not be summer without this blithe- 

 some little blue bunting, brilliant both in song 

 and plumage. 



His blue plumage and glad song are celebrated 

 in the following stanzas by Ethelwyn Wetherald : 



"When I see, 



High on the tip-top twig of a tree, 

 Something blue by the breezes stirred, 

 But so far up that the blue is blurred, 

 So far up no green leaf flies 

 'Twixt its blue and the blue of the skies, 

 Then I know, ere a note be heard, 

 That is naught but the Indigo bird. 



Blue on the branch and blue in the sky, 

 And naught between but the breezes high, 

 And naught so blue by the breezes stirred 

 As the deep, deep blue of the Indigo bird. 



