BLUEBIRD. 



SlALIA SIALIS. 



Char. Male : above, azure blue, duller on cheeks; throat, breast, and 

 sides reddish brown ; belly and under tail-coverts white ; shafts of feathers 

 in wing and tail, black. Female : duller, blue of back mixed with grayish 

 brown ; breast with less of rufous tint. Length about 6^ inches. 



Nest. In a hollow tree, deserted Woodpecker's hole, or otheri excava- 

 tion or crevice, or in a bird-box ; meagrely lined with grass or feathers. 



Eggs. 4-6 ; usually pale blue, sometimes almost white ; 0.85 X 0.65. 



These well-known and familiar favorites inhabit almost the 

 whole eastern side of the continent of America, from the 48th 

 parallel to the very line of the tropics. Some appear to mi- 

 grate in winter to the Bermudas and Bahama islands, though 

 most of those which pass the summer in the North only retire 

 to the Southern States or the tableland of Mexico. In South 

 Carolina and Georgia they were abundant in January and Feb- 

 ruary, and even on the 12th and 28th of the former month, the 

 weather being mild, a few of these wanderers warbled out their 

 simple notes from the naked limbs of the long-leaved pines. 

 Sometimes they even pass the winter in Pennsylvania, or at 

 least make their appearance with almost every relenting of the 

 severity of the winter or warm gleam of thawing sunshine. 

 From this circumstance of their roving about in quest of their 

 scanty food, like the hard-pressed and hungry Robin Redbreast, 

 who by degrees gains such courage from necessity as to enter 

 the cottage for his allowed crumbs, it has, without foundation, 



