INDIGO BUNTING. 215 



ungainly forms of the black-jack oaks. The prairies are at this time of the year a 

 glorious sight, being embellished by gorgeous masses of bright-colored flowers. The 

 woods are edged by broad borders of various shrubs, often intertwined and covered by 

 luxurious climbers. During a great part of the year these thickets are swarming w^ith 

 many species of small birds. We hear the Catbird's sweet medley, the Thrasher's charm- 

 ing sdng. The Wood Thrush sounds its melodious E-o-lie through the forest, and the 

 Cardinal's powerful notes fall on our ear from all sides, filling the soul with hilarity and 

 delight. The gushing strain of the White-eyed and Bell's Vireos, the sprightly song of 

 the Field Sparrow, the odd notes of the Yellow-breasted Chat, the notes of the Mock- 

 ingbird, of the Yellow and Hooded Warbler, Red-eyed Vireo, Kingbird, Wood Pewee, of 

 Traill's and the Acadian Flycatcher, of the Lark Sparrow, Bluebird, Robin, and Blue 

 Grosbeak are almost constantly heard. The Orchard Oriole pours forth its cheering 

 melody, and in the near fields Lark Sparrows, DickciSsels, and Meadow Larks sing 

 without interruption. The unpleasant screaming notes of the Blue Jay and the cawing 

 sounds of the Crow, although not a fit accompaniment to the general bird concert, are 

 nevertheless ever present, while the drumming of the Red-headed Woodpeckers and their 

 loud ga-rack, ga-ruck, ga-rack, and the notes of the Flicker, the whistling of the Bob- 

 white are not out of place in Nature's beautiful concert, the like of which we have never 

 an opportunity to enjoy in the Northern States. Among these notes we hear a very bright 

 and rapid warble, reminding us of the song of the Painted Bunting of the Southerh 

 States. Sometimes we may hear three or four of these performers at one time in close 

 proximity. It is rather difficult to find the songsters among the dense snowberry, hazel, 

 and blackberry thickets, but if we keep quipt, we soon see them perched in the tops of 

 bushes or small trees, where the deep indigo-blue color of their plumage beautifully 

 reflects in the rays of the sun. Sometimes they are ascending, as if in ecstacy, into the 

 air and then descending again immediately. 



The sprightly songster is the dainty little Indigo Bunting, or Indigo-bird, one of 

 the jewels of our native ornis like its near relative, the southern Painted Bunting and 

 the western Lazuli Finch. This elegant bird is a tenant of the dense shrubbery of the 

 woodland border, the thickets in the fence comers, the bushes in the fields and pastures, 

 and sometimes of the ornamental shrubs of the garden. Thorny bushes, especially 

 blackberry brambles, and also dense snowberry bushes on the borders of woods and in 

 waste fields and pastures are its favorite haunts. In Missouri and Arkansas it is a very 

 common bird. In Illinois and Wisconsin it is rather locally distributed, being abundantly 

 met with in one place and not at all in another apparently equally as well Suited to its 

 wants. In all parts of the East it is a more. or less common summer sojourner, being 

 a numerous bird in New England, especially in the southerly portions, becoming less 

 common the farther north it proceeds. Westward it is found to the edge of the Great 

 Plains, and northward to the southern parts of the British Provinces. I observed the 

 Indigo Bunting late in April and early in May quite abundantly in southern Texas, but 

 it was evidently migrating, and I do not beheve that it breeds there, its summer home 

 beginning in the northern part of said State. 



Though the Indigo-bird in many parts of our country must be ranked among the 

 most numerous summer residents, it is not at all a familiar and well-known bird like 



