56 
BLUE BIRD. 
very doors, lie bears bis own recommendation always along 
with him, and meets with a hearty welcome from every body. 
Though generally accounted a bird of passage, yet, so early 
as the middle of February, if the weather be open, he usually 
makes his appearance about his old haunts, the barn, orchard, 
and fence posts. Storms and deep snows sometimes succeed- 
ing, he disappears for a time ; but about the middle of March 
is again seen, accompanied by his mate, visiting the box in 
the garden, or the hole in the old apple tree, the cradle of 
by Mr Swainson, to our author. It remained a solitary individual, until the 
discovery of a Mexican species by that gentleman, described under the title of 
S. Mexicana ; and the return of the last overland Arctic expedition brought „ 
forward a third, confirming the views that were before held regarding it. 
According to* these, it will range among the Saxicolince, whence it had been 
previously removed from Sylvia by Vieillot and Bonaparte, and it will hold 
the place, in North and South America, of the Robin of Europe, and the Stone- 
chats of that country and Africa ; while, in New Holland, the Muscicapa 
multicolor, now bearing the generic title of Petroica, with some allied species, 
will represent it. The old species ranges extensively over North America, 
and the northern parts of the south continent, extending also to some of the 
islands : the newly discovered one appears confined to a more northern 
latitude. It has been described in the second volume of the Northern 
Zoology, under the name of S. Arctica, and I now add the information 
contained in that valuable work : — 
“ Colour of the dorsal aspect, ultramarine blue ; the webs of the tertiaries, 
and the tips of the inner margins of the quill and tail-feathers, dull umber 
brown ; the base of the plumage, blackish gray. Under surface — the cheeks, 
throat, breast, and insides of the wings, greenish blue, bordering on the abdomen 
to grayish blue ; vent-feathers, and under tail-coverts, white ; tail beneath, and 
inside of the quill-feathers, olive brown, with a strong tinge of blue ; bill and 
feet, pitch black ; form, in general, that of S. Wilsonii, but the bill is consi- 
derably narrower at the base, and proportionably larger, straighter, and less 
notched, and bent at the tip of the upper mandible ; its breadth is equal to its 
depth ; wings, three quarters of an inch shorter than the tail ; the second 
quill-feather is the longest ; the first and third are equal, and about a line 
shorter ; the tenth is an inch and a half shorter than the second ; tail, forked, 
or deeply emarginated, the central feathers being more than half an inch 
shorter than the exterior ones ; legs and feet, similarly formed with those of 
S. Wilsonii; length, seven inches nine lines.”. — Ed. 
3 
