50 



RICE BUNTING 



to the sea; in all of which places north of Pennsylvania they 

 Ixmain during the summer, building, and rearing their young. 

 The nest is fixed on the ground, generally in a field of grass ; the 

 outside is composed of dry leaves and coarse grass, the inside is 

 lined with fine stalks of the same, laid in considerable quantity. 

 The female lays five eggs, of a bluish white, marked with nume- 

 rous irregular spots of blackish brown. The song of the male, 

 while the female is sitting, is singular, and very agreeable. Mount- 

 ing and hovering on wing, at a small height above the field, he 

 chants out such a jingling medley of short variable notes, uttered 

 with such seeming confusion and rapidity, and continued for a con- 

 siderable time, that it appears as if half a dozen birds of different 

 kinds were all singing together. Some idea may be formed of this 

 song by striking the high keys of a piano forte at random, singly, 

 and quickly, making as many sudden contrasts of high and low 

 notes as possible. Many of the tones are, in themselves, charm.- 

 ing ; but they succeed each other so rapidly that the ear can hardly 

 separate them. Nevertheless the general effect is good; and when 

 ten or twelve are all singing on the same tree, the concert is sin- 

 gularly pleasing. I kept one of these birds for a long time, to ob- 

 serve its change of color. During the whole of April, May, and 

 June, it sang almost continually. In the month of June the color 

 of the male begins to change, gradually assimilating to that of the 

 female, and before the beginning of August it is difficult to distin- 

 guish the one from the other, both being then in the dress of fig. 2. 

 At this time, also, the young birds are so much like the female, or 

 rather like both parents, and the males so different in appearance 

 from what they were in spring, that thousands of people in Penn- 

 sylvania, to this day, persist in believing them to be a different spe- 

 cies altogether. While others allow them indeed to be the same, but 

 confidently assert that they are all females — ^none but females, ac- 

 cording to them, returning in the Fall ; what becomes of the males 

 they are totally at a loss to conceive. Even Mr. MarkCatesby, who 



