The Lazuli Bunting 



fling her turquoises about in such fashion. We must investigate. Upon 

 arrival, in late April or early May, and before the return of his dun-colored 

 mate, the male Lazuli is quite conscious of his prominence in the land- 

 scape. He avoids notice and goes bounding away if closely pressed; but 

 love soon makes him bold, and he will pursue the object of his affections 

 into the very thicket where you stand. Then, while the female lurks 

 timidly within, he mounts a spray and yields an outburst of music, pierc- 

 ing and earnest, if not too sweet. We see that his blue is deep azure, or 

 turquoise, rather than that of the lapis lazuli from which he is named. 

 The red of his breast is nearly that of the Robin's, while the pure white of 

 the remaining underparts completes a patriotic study in red, white and 

 blue. The female shows something of the color pattern of her mate, with 

 the important exception that dull brown supplants the royal blue of head 

 and back. After all, then, they are fitted for separate spheres: she to 

 skulk and hide and escape the hostile eye in the discharge of her maternal 

 duties; he to lose himself against the blue of heaven, as he sings reassur- 

 ingly from a tree-top, or sends down notes of warning upon the approach 

 of danger. 



The song of the Lazuli Bunting is a rambling warble, not unlike that 

 of the Indigo Bunting (P. cyanea), but somewhat less energetic. Its brief 

 course rises and falls in short cadences and ends with a hasty jumble of 

 unfinished notes, as though the singer were out of breath. Moreover, the 

 bird does not take his task very seriously, and he does not burden the mid- 

 day air with incessant song, as does his tireless cousin. 



While in camp on the southern shore of Clear Lake, in June, 1916 

 (the year of the big freeze in that section), my attention was intrigued 

 by an early morning singer who lisped out only a monotonous string of 

 squeaky notes. The quality and cadence were warbler-like, but there 

 was no such warbler called for by the books. So I followed the elusive 

 thing through the mazes of the frost-bitten oaks for half an hour. Tsweek 

 tsweek tsweek tsweek tsweek tsweek, was all he said, although with some 

 variation of inflection or emphasis. When at last I had the little rascal 

 pinned against the sky, down sun, I found not a recreant Geothlypis, 

 but a Lazuli Bunting, a male in very low plumage, and so, presumably, 

 a yearling. 



During the year of 1912, the year of the great warbler wave, we had 

 Lazuli Buntings in great numbers. In the course of a fifty mile drive 

 along the Santa Barbara coast we saw hundreds, or thousands, of them. 

 It was not a matter of scattering individuals, either, for they appeared 

 in squads and platoons wherever the wayside weeds gave shelter. Arrived 

 at our own demesne, it was again Lazuli Buntings. The tall grass of a 

 neighbor's yard seemed especially attractive to them; and once when a 



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