314 SINGING BIRDS. 
PAINTED BUNTING. 
NONPAREIL. 
PASSERINA CIRIS. 
CuHar. Male: headand neck purplish blue; eyelids red; back yellow- 
ish green; rump purplish red; wings dusky, glossed with green and red ; 
tail purplish brown; below, vermilion. Female: above, pale olive; be- 
low, dull buff. Length 54 to 534 inches. 
Vest. In a thicket of low bushes; compactly made of twigs, roots, 
shreds of bark and grass, lined with fine grass or horse-hair, or fine roots. 
Eggs. 4-5; dull white, or with blue tint, marked chiefly around larger 
end with purplish and reddish brown; 0.80 X 0.60. 
This splendid, gay, and docile bird, known to the Americans 
as the Vonparei/, and to the French Louisianians as the Pufe, 
inhabits the woods of the low countries of the Southern States, 
in the vicinity of the sea and along the borders of the larger 
rivers, from North Carolina to Mexico. It arrives from its 
tropical quarters in Louisiana and Georgia from the middle 
to the zoth of April; but impatient of cold, retires to the 
South early in October, and is supposed to winter about Vera 
Cruz. For the sake of their song as well as beauty of plum- 
age, these birds are commonly domesticated in the houses of 
the French inhabitants of New Orleans and its vicinity; and 
some have succeeded in raising them in captivity, where plenty 
of room was allowed in an aviary. They are familiar also in 
the gardens and orchards, where their warbling notes are al- 
most perpetually heard throughout the summer. Their song 
much resembles that of the Indigo Bird, but their voice is 
more feeble and concise. Soon reconciled to the cage, they 
will sing even a few days after being caught. Their food con- 
sists of rice, insects, and various kinds of seeds; they collect 
also the grains of the ripe figs, and, frequenting gardens, build 
often within a few paces of the house, being particularly 
attached to the orangeries. 
Their nests are usually made in the hedges of the orange, or 
on the lower branches of the same tree, likewise occasionally 
in a bramble or thorny bush. In the mildest climates in which 
