504 INDIGO BUNTING. 



is the only instance in which I have known them to do so. The nest 

 is usually placed in a bush or low tree, about three feet from the ground, 

 and with us has imiformly been built of Russia matting, purloined 

 from our grape-vines, lined with fine grass and hair. The eggs, four 

 in number, are eleven-sixteenths of an inch in length, seven-sixteenths 

 in breadth, and of a imiform white colour, without the slightest blotch 

 or mark. I have never met with an egg having this purple blotch at 

 the larger end, which you and Wilson mention as existing there, al- 

 though my observations are taken from the contents of more than eight 

 nests. The second brood spoken of above was hatched in September." 



I have before me at this moment an egg of the Indigo Bird procu- 

 red by myself, which has several dots toward the larger end, and of 

 which the general coloiu- is not pure white, but, as described by Ndt- 

 TALL, greenish-white, or rather, as I would call it, lightish-blue. 



The width of the mouth is 3 twelfths ; the palate ascending ; the 

 upper mandible beneath with three narrow ridges, forming a large ob- 

 long hard knob at their base. Tongue 4f twelfths long, higher than 

 broad, deeply grooved above in its whole length, horny at the end and 

 pointed. (Esophagus 1 inch 10 twelfths long, dilated into a kind of 

 cross 4^ twelfths wide. Stomach elliptical, 6 twelfths long, 5 twelfths 

 in breadth, with the lateral muscle strong, the epithelium dense and 

 longitudinally rugous. It contains insects, seeds, and grains of quartz. 

 Intestine of ordinary length ; cceca 1^ twelfth long, i twelfth wide, 

 IO5 twelfths from the extremity. 



Trachea 1^ inch long, its rings 78, its breadth f twelfth, its mus- 

 cles as usual. Bronchi of 15 half rings. 



TREE SPARROW. 



Fringilla canadensis, Lath. 



PLATE CLXXXVIII. Vol. II. p. 511. 



According to Dr T. M. Brewer, this is the most common Sparrow 

 found near Boston during the winter, inhabiting in large flocks the low 

 bushes and grass in marshy, sheltered situations, much of the time very 

 quiet and inactive. 



