538 AVES— SPARROW. ..GOLDFINCH. 



THE FIELD SPARROW i 



Is the smallest of all our sparrows, and frequents dry fields covered with 

 long grass, builds a small nest on the ground at the foot of a bush, and lines 

 it with horse-hair. It has no song, but a kind of chirruping not much diffe- 

 rent from the chirpings of a cricket. There are multitudes of these little 

 birds in North and South Carolina and Georgia. When disturbed, they take 

 to the bushes, clustering so close together that a dozen may be shot at a time. 

 This bird is five inches and a quarter in length ; the upper parts are chesnut 

 and black. 



THE INDIGO BIRD2 



Is numerous in the middle and eastern states, and in the Carolinas and 

 Georgia. It is also known in Mexico and Nova Scotia. Its favorite 

 haunts are about gardens, fields of clover, borders of woods, and roadsides, 

 where it is frequently seen perched on fences. In its manners it is extremely 

 neat and active, and a vigorous and pretty good songster. It mounts to the 

 tops of the highest trees, and chants for half an hour at a time. Its song is 

 not one continued strain, but a repetition of short notes, commencing loud 

 and rapid, and falling by slow gradations till they seem hardly articulate, as 

 if the little minstrel were quite exhausted ; but after a pause of half a minute, 

 it commences again as before. He sings with as much animation under the 

 meridian sun in July as in the month of May, and continues his song till 

 August. His usual note when alarmed, is a sharp chip. It feeds on insects 

 and seeds. 



Notwithstanding the beauty of his plumage, the vivacity of his song, the 

 indigo bird is seldom seen domesticated. Its nest is built in a low bush, 

 among ra \k grass, grain, or clover; suspended by two twigs, one passing up 

 each side, i.nd is composed of flax, and lined with grass. This bird is five 

 inches long, the whole body of a rich sky blue, deepening in color toward 

 the head, and sometimes varying to green. 



THE YELLOW-BIRD, OR G L D F I N C H3 



Bears a great resemblance to the canary, and in song is like the goldfinch 

 of Britain, but it is in general so weak as to appear to proceed from a dis- 



1 Fringilla pusilla, Wilson. '^ Fringilla cyanea, Wilson. 



3 Fring-illa tristis, Lin. 

 i 



