INDIGO BUNTING. 
Baltimore and Orchard Orioles, and in the Bulfinch, Chaffinch, and other 
European birds. 
The nest of the Indigo-bird is usually fixed amongst the rankest stalks 
of weeds or grass, now and then amongst the stems of a briar, or even in a 
small hollow in a decayed tree. In all cases its composition is the same ; 
but when amongst grass, clover, or briars, it is attached to two or three of 
the stalks by its sides. It is formed of coarse grasses, hemp stalks, and 
flax, and is lined with slender grasses. The female lays from four to six 
eggs, which are blue, with a spot or two of purple at the larger end. 
Towards fall, the young congregate into loose flocks or parties of eight or 
ten individuals, and proceed southward. I think their migration, at both 
periods of the year, is performed during night. Two broods are generally 
raised in a season. The food of the Indigo-bird consists of small seeds of 
various kinds, as well as insects, some of which it occasionally pursues on 
wing with great vigour. They are fond of basking and rolling themselves 
in the roads, from which they gather small particles of sand or gravel. I 
have frequently seen live birds of this species offered for sale in Europe. 
I have represented an adult female, two young males of the first and 
second year, in autumn, and a male in the full beauty of its plumage. They 
are placed on a plant usually called the wild sarsaparilla. It grows in 
Louisiana, on the skirts of the forests, in low damp places, and along the 
fields, where the Indigo-birds are to be- found. It is a creeoing plant, and 
is considered valuable on account of its medicinal properties. 
I observed this species breeding in the Texas late in April, and it would 
appear from a note sent by my friend Dr. T. M. Brewer of Boston, that it 
reaches the neighbourhood of that city early in June, but does not commence 
its nest there until the latter part of that month, or early in July. He 
further states that it “is abundant near Boston, and when it arrives in spring 
generally chooses the highest chimney-tops to alight upon. They appear 
much attached to particular districts. A pair has now for five years in suc- 
cession built in my father’s garden, but this year something would seem to 
have befallen them, for they have not made their appearance. One year 
they raised a second brood. This is the only instance in which I have 
known them to do so. The nest is usually placed in a bush or low tree, 
about three feet from the ground, and with us has uniformly been built of 
Russia matting, purloined from our grape-vines, lined with fine grass and 
hair. The eggs, four in number, are eleven-sixteenths of an inch in length, 
seven-sixteenths in breadth, and of a uniform white colour, without the 
slightest blotch or mark. I have never met with an egg having this purple 
blotch at the larger end, which you and Wilson mention as existing there, 
