222 PAINTED BUNTING. 



the pure white blossoms and glossy green leaves. It was so full of glee that it chanted 

 its bright notes incessantly. The first French settlers in Louisiana, being struck by the 

 beauty of this songster, named it Nonpareil (the incomparable, the unequalled) and 

 Le Pape, while the Spaniards called it Mariposa (the butterfly). Also on account of its 

 brilliant plumage it was called Painted BunTing, Painted Finch, and Paradise Finch. 

 The name "Pop" and "Red Pop," by which it is known by bird-dealers in southern 

 Louisiana, is a corruption of the French Le Pape. 



The summer home of the Painted Bunting extends from the Gulf States north to 

 Indian Territory, Arkansas, and rarely to southern Illinois, southern Kansas, and North 

 Carolina. In the mountains of South Carolina, Georgia, and Alabama it does not occur 

 as a summer resident. I have observed it in great abundance in the Gulf region firom 

 Tallahassee, Fla., to Austin and New Braunfels, Texas. On the peninsula of Florida I 

 have never seen it during summer, but I presume it will become numerous -when the 

 land is more extensively cultivated. The Nonpareil, like the Blue Grosbeak and the 

 Orchard Oriole, seems to have acquired a special love for the habitations of man. This 

 is doubtless due to the protection which such localities afford against various natural 

 enemies. Not only because raccoons, oppossums, wild cats, birds of prey, and other 

 robbers are apt to avoid the presence of mankind, "but as the country is more open 

 about plantations it enables the birds to perceive more readily the approach of any 

 intending disturber of their peace." At the same time insects are much more abundant 

 on the cultivated plants than on the wild vegetation, and this is another important 

 fact why so many birds are found in gardens, and orchards. In southern Louisiana, 

 where the French settlers in the last century developed grand plantations and built 

 opulent houses, where the golden orange glowed among the dark evergreen leaves, where 

 magnolias and evergreen ornamental shrubs and roses formed the main attractions of 

 these gardens, the Painted Bunting soon became one of the familiar birds. "A wealthy 

 French planter," writes Alexander Wilson in 1810, "who lives on the banks of the 

 Mississippi, a few miles below Bayou Fourche, took me into his garden, which is 

 spacious and magnificent, to show me his aviary ; where among many of our common 

 birds, I observed several Nonpareils, two of which had nests, and were then hatching." 



In south-eastern Texas, near Houston, the favorite haunts of the Painted Bunting 

 are blackberry thickets on the borders of woods and along fences. But it is equally 

 common in large gardens, where magnolias, laurel cherry trees, crape myrtles, and dense 

 ornamental shrubs are common. In geatest numbers, however, I found this bird about 

 one hundred miles west of Houston, on the West Yegua Creek, in Lee County, Every 

 thicket, peach orchard, and forest border harbored one or more pairs of these lively and 

 sprightly birds. In southern Georgia, near St. Mary's, Prof Wm. Brewster has also 

 found this bird quite common. In his interesting way he writes as follows : 



"The Painted Buntings or Nonpareils, as they are universally called by the towns- 

 people, arrived April 23 and through the remainder of the month were abundant. I 

 used to find them in flocks about the openings, where they spent much of their time on 

 the ground. They were timid rather than shy, flying to the thickets upon the slightest 

 alarm, but when once conscious of being pursued it was diflicult to approach them. 

 The brilliant plumage of the adult male makes him a conspicuous object either on the 



