FINCHES, SPARROWS, ETC. 
411 
In walking among clumps of bushes in clearings or old pastures, 
look sharp if a small brown bird flies before you, especially if she calls 
cheep and twitches her tail nervously from side to side. Though she 
be a sparrowy-looking bird, look well to her shoulders and tail. If you 
discover a glint of blue and her cries call her mate, you will ever after 
be a more trustworthy observer — for his brilliant coat is unmistakable. 
Having made sure of your birds, watch them to their nest — a com- 
pactly made cup — too cleverly hidden in the dense green thicket to be 
easily discovered. The color of the eggs will again test your accuracy 
of observation; in varying lights they look green, blue, and white. 
The female Indigo is so suspicious that it is not hard to be vexed 
with her, but the primary virtues of an observer are conscientiousness 
and patience; so take your hard cases as a means of grace. 
However distrustful the poor mother bird is, her mate’s cheery song 
makes up for it all. After most birds have stopped singing for the year, 
his merry voice still gladdens the long August days. 
I well remember watching one Indigo-bird, who, day after day, used 
to fly to the lowest limb of a high tree and sing his way up from branch 
to branch, bursting into jubilant song when he reached the topmost 
bough. I watched him climb as high into the air as he could, when, 
against a background of blue sky and rolling white clouds, the blessed 
little songster broke out into the blithest round that ever bubbled up 
from a glad heart. Florence Merriam Bailey. 
The Varied Bunting (600. Passerina versicolor versicolor ), a species of 
our Mexican border, has been once recorded from Michigan. 
601 . Passerina ciris (Linn.). Painted Bunting; Nonpareil. Ad. d. 
• — Head and sides of the neck indigo-blue ; back golden green ; rump dull red ; 
underparts bright red; wings and tail tinged with dull red; greater wing- 
coverts green. Im. d. — Resembles the 9 . Ad. $ . — Upperparts bright olive- 
green ; underparts white, washed with greenish yellow ; wings and tail fuscous, 
margined with olive-green. L., 5*25; W., 2'70; T., 2T5; B., *42. 
Range. — SE. U. S. Breeds in Austroriparian fauna from s. Kans., cen. 
Ark., n. Miss., and se. N. C. s. to se. N. M., Tex., and the Gulf coast; casual 
in s. Ariz., and s. Ills. ; winters in the Bahamas, Cuba, and from cen. Mex. to 
Panama; occasional in winter in s. La. and cen. Fla. 
Nest, similar to that of P. cyanea , in bushes or low trees. Eggs, 3-4, 
white or bluish white, with numerous chestnut or rufous-brown markings, 
*78 x ’56. Date, Chatham Co., Ga., May 16. 
Mr. Maynard found this species in southern Florida in January, but 
it does not migrate northward until about May 1. He writes that it 
“is always shy and retiring, seldom appearing in the open, but remain- 
ing in the dense, thorny undergrowth which covers all waste places in 
Florida, especially if the soil has been cultivated. Whenever the birds 
perceive an intruder they retire into the depths of these fastnesses, and 
it requires considerable beating to drive them out, when they at once 
dart into the nearest cover. The adult males are especially shy, and 
seldom show themselves. Even while singing they remained concealed, 
and, although we were thus furnished with a clew to their whereabouts, 
it was with the utmost difficulty that we caught sight of the authors 
