210 BLUB GROSBEAK. 



and killing them and robbing their eggs denotes a low degree of civilization, cruelty 

 and want of feeling. 



Man values and cherishes not equally all the feathered inhabitants of wold, field, 

 and meadow. He may be fond of them all, but he generally prizes most highly those 

 who manifest their confidence and attachment by seeking his company and depending to 

 some extent on his hospitality, and who in the most beautifiil season of the year come 

 into close proximity of his dwelling, cheering him by their happiness and sweet music. 

 None of our songbirds are such universal favorites in the North than the Robin, Blue- 

 bird, Song Sparrow, Catbird, Rose-breasted Grosbeak, Purple Martin, and Bam Swallow, 

 and none enjoy the love and good will of man in the southern gardens more than the 

 Mockingbird, Cardinal Redbird, Carolina Wren, Painted Bunting, Orchard Oriole, and 

 the beautiful Blue Grosbeak, the subject of this sketch, with whom I wish to make 

 my readers now more closely acquainted. 



Audubon describes this exquisite bird as shy and recluse, effecting remote marshes 

 'and the borders of large ponds. The following life-history will shgw that, on the con- 

 trary, the Blue Grosbeak is at present one of our most familiar birds, never inhabiting 

 marshy places and the interior of the woods, but preferably orchards, the ornamental 

 shrubs of the garden and the brambles on the road-sides. 



The Blue Grosbeak is one of the most refined and beautiful of all our native birds. 

 The color of the male is a brilliant deep blue, darkest on back and almost black on the 

 tail. Two small reddish-brown spots on the wing characterize the bird at once. The 

 female is light brownish, darkest on the breast. When the sun falls on the plumage of 

 the wings and tail, it has a faint bluish tint. Both birds have much similarity to the 

 Indigo Bunting, only that the latter is much smaller and without the characteristic 

 reddish-brown wing spots. 



In all parts of Texas, from San Antonio, New Braunfels and Austin to Houston 

 and thence through southern Louisiana to New Orleans, and from there to Tallahassee, 

 Florida, I found the Blue Grosbeak a common, though nowhere an abundant bird. One 

 of the delightful unfading pictures in my memory of the southern blackberry thicket?, 

 the Cherokee-rose hedges, and the shrubbery of the fence-comers is that of this elegant 

 bird. I met with it for the first time on April 22, 1879, at Serbin, Lee Co., Texas. It 

 was perched on a fence, uttering its lively strain after short intervals. As the bird was 

 not shy I could observe it for quite a while. When approaching too closely it took 

 wing and disappeared in a blackberry thicket, almost touching the ground when flying. 

 At the end of the same month and at the beginning of the next I rambled about in 

 south-eastern Texas, near Spring Creek. The farms in this locality are situated on fertile 

 prairie land on the outskirts of very beautiful and dense woods. In the comers of the 

 rail-fences a thick growth of blackberry bushes, wild roses, smilax, sassafras, and trumpet 

 creeper as well as small trees and now and then a dense mass of Cherokee roses, occurred. 

 Such places are not only the favorite haunts of Cardinals, Yellow-breasted Chats, Painted 

 Buntings, Carolina Wrens, and White-eyed Vireos, they also form the true home of the 

 Blue Grosbeak. Thickets of cacti {Opuntia Engelmanni), yuccas, and small trees covered 

 with grape-vines, smilax, and trumpet creeper were found everywhere in the pastures 

 and on the prairie. 



