298 USEFUL BIRDS. 
Indigo Bunting. Indigo Bird. 
Cyanospiza cyanea. 
Length. — About five and one-half inches. 
Adult Male.— Bright, lustrous indigo-blue, deepest on head, and often with a 
greenish tinge; wings and tail dark brown, with blue marks and tints. 
Adult Female and Young. — Upper parts light brown, sometimes faintly, but 
never prominently, streaked; under parts brownish-gray ; breast and sides 
faintly streaked. 
Nest, —In low bush. 
Eggs.— White. 
Season. — May to September. 
This bright blue Bunting is one of the most brilliant of 
northern birds. The color of the male is so dark that at 
a distance it seems almost black. The 
male requires three years to attain full 
plumage. It frequents bushy pastures, 
sprout lands, and old fruit gardens 
grown up to weeds. In late August 
and September it is seen in sweet-corn 
Fig. 129.—Indigo Bunt- 
ing, male, about one-half Patches or cornfields. 
na ural islZe Its song is a rather rich and: pleas- 
ing refrain, with a metallic ring‘or jingle. A few notes 
seem to exhaust its vocabulary and its breath at the same 
time, but it is soon ready to try again. Perseverance is its 
unfailing virtue, for it sings, intermittently, all through the 
long, hot summer day. Its alarm note is a sharp chip. 
It feeds more on the caterpillars that infest trees and 
bushes than do most Sparrows, and takes many such larve to 
its young. It is fond of grasshoppers, 
and takes some insects from the garden. 
It eats the birch plant louse with avidity. 
A few flies, mosquitoes, or gnats are 
taken; cankerworms and other measur- %=32 
ing worms, the larvee of several species of Fig.130 —1ndigo Bunt- 
butterflies, and the imagoes of nocturnal ing, female. 
and Tineid moths, with small beetles of different species, con- 
stitute a portion of its insect food. The larger part of its food 
consists of seeds, many of which are those of weeds. During 
its short stay with us it is one of the few useful species seen 
much about the garden, and is of some service in the orchard. 
