LAZULI BUNTING. 



Passerina amoena Gray. 



Plate XXVIII. Fig. 4. 



H^HE beautiful little Lazuli Bunting or Lazuli Finch is one of the most common 

 summer residents of California and the west coast, north at least to Puget 

 Sound and east to the Great Plains. Mr. Ridgway found it common in California, 

 Nevada, and Utah, inhabiting all the bushy localities in the fertile districts. He regards 

 it the exact counterpart of the Indigo Bunting. The notes of the two are so much alike 

 that their song w^ould be indistinguishable but for the fact that in the Lazuli Bunting 

 it is appreciably weaker. He found their nests usually in the low limbs of trees, near 

 their extremity and only a few feet from the ground. Nuttall found the nest fastened 

 between the stem and' two branches of a large fern. It was ftmnel-shaped, being six 

 inches in height and three in breadth. 



According to the information of a friend in Santa Barbara Co., Cal., the Lazuli 

 Bunting arrives there in the third week of April, remaining until late in October. There 

 is hardly an orchard or a garden planted with ornamental shrubs uninhabited by one 

 or more pairs of these sprightly and beautiful birds. They usually sing from the top of a 

 silk oak*, of a silver tree^, of an Australian myrtle', of a Jacaranda*, or of other unique 

 trees of those unrivalled gardens, and hides, when disturbed, often in the very large and 

 dense masses of bamboos^. They often build in rose bushes, dense myrtles, orange trees, 

 and thorny shrubs, usually from five to fourteen feet from the ground. The nest con- 

 sists of fine grasses, pliable plant-stems, and bark-strips, and is lined with fine grasses 

 and almost always with hair. The eggs, usually four in number, are bluish-white, 

 without spots, resembling those of the Indigo Bunting closely. My friend also states 

 that the common name of this bird near Santa Barbara is "Indigo-bird," and that rarely 

 one person out of fifty is acquainted with its correct name. 



Dr. Elliott Coues found these birds in Arizona, but there they were not abundant. 

 Dr. J. A. Allen observed them in Colorado up to 7,000 feet; 

 NAMES: Lazuli Bunting, Lazuli Finch ("Indigo-bird" in Cal.). — Lazalifink (German). 



SCIENTIFIC NAMES: Emberiza amoena Say (1823). Fringilla amcena And. (1839). Cyanospiza amoena 

 Baird (1858). PASSERINA AMCENA Gray (1870). 



DESCRIPTION: "Adult male: Head, neck, and upper parts turquoise-blue, the back darker and duller; 

 middle wing<overts, broadly and greater coverts, narrowly tipped with white (sometimes tinged with 

 ochraceous); breast (sometimes sides also), deep ochraceous, or tawny; rest of lower parts, white. 

 Adult female: Above, grayish-brown; tinged with bluish on rump, the wing'coverts tipped with dull 

 whitish or bufiFy; anterior lower parts, pale dull bufiy, deeper on chest and fkding into white on belly 

 and lower tail-coverts. Young: Similar to adult female, but without blue tinge on rump. 



"Length, 5.00 to 6.25 inches; wing, 2.70 to 2.95; tail, 2.30 to 2.80 inches." (Ridgway.) 



1 Greviilea robusta. 2 Lettcadendron argenteutn. 8 Bugeaia Australis. * Jacaranda znimosiefolia. s Bambusa 

 vulgaris, Phytlostacbys riridi-glaacescens. Ph. nigra, Pb. mitis, and others. 



