BIRDS AND BIRDS 147 



stingy, and wliioh is a large and free rendering of 

 the indigo's, and belongs to summer more than to 

 spring. The bird is colored the same as its lesser 

 brother, the males being a deep blue and the females 

 a modest drab. Its nest is usually placed low down, 

 as is the indigo's, and the male carols from the 

 tops of the trees in its vicinity in the same manner. 

 Indeed, the two birds are strikingly alike in every 

 respect except in size and in habitat, and, as in each 

 of the other cases, the lesser bird is, as it were, the 

 point, the continuation, of the larger, carrying its 

 form and voice forward as the reverberation carries 

 the sound. 



I know the ornithologists, with their hair-split- 

 tings, or rather feather-splittings, point out many 

 differences, but they are unimportant. The fractions 

 may not agree, but the whole numbers are the same. 



