Alabama, 19 13. 35 



sive song. Yet on this point' opinions differ, and Wilson calls it 

 "a vigorous and pretty good songster. It mounts to the highest 

 top of a tree, and chants for half an hour at a time. Its song is 

 not one continuous strain, but a repetition of short notes, com- 

 mencing loud and rapid and falling by almost imperceptible grada- 

 tions, for six or eight seconds, until they seem hardly articulate, 

 as if the little minstrel were quite exhausted; and, after a pause of 

 half a minute or less, commences as before. Then, too, the 

 Indigo bird sings with as much animation in the month of July 

 as in the month of May, and not infrequently continues his song 

 until the last of August." 



Nuttall writes that though usually shy the Indigo bird during 

 the nesting season is more frequently seen near habitations than 

 in remote thickets: "Their favorite resort is the garden, where, 

 from the topmost branch of some tall tree that commands the 

 whole wide landscape, the male regularly pours out his lively chant, 

 and continues it for a considerable length of time. Nor is this 

 song confined to the cool and animating dawn of morning, but 

 it is renewed and still more vigorous during the noon-day heat of 

 summer. This lively strain is composed of a repetition of short 

 notes, which, commencing loud and rapid, and then slowly falling, 

 descend almost to a whisper, succeeded by a silence of almost half 

 a minute, when the song is again continued as before." 



