Indigo Bunting 403 
Genus PASSERINA. 
Small Finches—wing under 3-0—with rather small acute and pointed 
bills, with the lower mandible deeper than the upper and the culmen 
ridged ; nostrils exposed; wings moderately long and pointed, the 
ninth primary nearly the longest (in P. amena), or rounded with the 
seventh and eighth the longest (in P. cyanea) ; tail moderate, exceeding 
-75 in the wing, more or less even; sexes unlike, males brilliantly 
coloured with blue and other bright colours, females mostly plain 
brown. 
This genus, containing, according to Ridgway, six species, ranges 
over the temperate and tropical portions of North America as far south 
as Panama. 
A. Blue above and below. C. cyanea, ¢ p. 403. 
B. Blue above, abdomen white, a red band on chest. 
C. ameena, f p. 404, 
C. Brown above. 
a. Rump brown like the back, but slightly washed with greenish. 
C. cyanea, 2 p. 403. 
b. Rump dull slaty-blue. C. amena, 2 p. 404. 
Indigo Bunting. Passerina cyanea. 
A.0.U. Checklist no 598—Colorado Records—Ridgway 73, p. 176 ; 
Cooke 97, pp. 109, 216; Burnett 00, p. 90; Felger 02, p. 294; H. G. 
Smith 08, p. 188. 
Description.—Male—General colour azure blue, rather more ultra- 
marine blue on the head ; wings and tail dusky, edged with blue, the 
coverts and tertials almost black in the centre; iris brown, upper 
mandible black, lower greyish-blue with w narrow line of black from 
angle to tip, legs dusky. Length 4-75; wing 2-55 ; tail 1-90; culmen 
-40; tarsus -62. 
The female is dark tawny-brown above with a trace of greenish wash 
on the rump ; below dull white washed with buffy on the chest and more 
strongly on the sides and flanks, where there are traces of dusky streaks 
—wing 2-50. The young male is at first like the female and does not 
acquire the full adult blue livery for two or even three years. 
Distribution.—_Breeding throughout eastern North America, from 
Minnesota and Ontario southwards; south in winter to Bahamas 
and Cuba, and through eastern Mexico to Veragua in Colombia. 
In Colorado the Indigo Bunting is hardly more than w straggler ; 
the following are the recorded instances of its occurrence: El Paso 
co. May 18th, 1872 (Aiken), Fort Collins, several seen one secured, May, 
1900, by W. Link (Cooke); Clear Creek near Denver observed May 
7th, 1901 (Felger) ; Hugo, Lincoln co., June 9th (H. G. Smith). 
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