SPECIES 17. FRINGILLA CYANE^. 
INDIGO BIRD. 
[Plate VI. — Fig. 5.] 
Tanagra eyanea, Linn. Syst. i, 3 1 5 . — Le Ministre, Buffon, iv, 96. 
— Indigo Bunting, Jirct. Zool. ii, JVo. 235. — Lath. Syn. iii, 
205, 63 . — Blue Linnet, Edw. 273 . — Linaria eyanea, Bartram, 
p. 290.— Peale’s Museum, JVo. 6002. 
This is another of those rich-plumaged tribes, that visit us in 
spring from the regions of the south. It arrives in Pennsylva- 
nia on the second week in May; and disappears about the mid- 
dle of September. It is numerous in all the settled parts of the 
middle and eastern states; in the Carolinas and Georgia it is also 
' abundant. Though Catesby says that it is only found at a great 
distance from the sea; yet round the city of New York, and in 
many places along the shores of New Jersey, I have met with 
them in plenty. I may also add, on the authority of Mr. Wil- 
liam Bartram, that “ they inhabit the continent and sea-coast 
islands, from Mexico to Nova Scotia, from the sea-coast west 
beyond the Apalachian and Cherokee mountains.”* They are 
also known in Mexico, where they probably winter. Its favour- 
ite haunts, while with us, are about gardens, fields of deep clo- 
ver, the borders of woods, and road sides, where it is frequent- 
ly seen perched on the fences. In its manners it is extremely 
active and neat; and a vigorous and pretty good songster. It 
mounts to the highest tops of a large tree, and chants for half 
an hour at a time. Its song is not one continued strain, but a 
repetition of short notes, commencing loud and rapid, and fall- 
ing by almost imperceptible gradations for six or eight seconds, 
till they seem hardly articulate, as if the little minstrel were 
quite exhausted; and after a pause of half a minute or less, com- 
* Travels, p. 299. 
