BLUE-BIRD. 
449 
Confident in this protection, he shows but little alarm for 
his undisturbed tenement ; while, in the remote orchard, 
expecting no visitor but an enemy, in company with his 
anxious mate, he bewails the approach of the intruder, and 
flying round his head and hands, appears, by his actions, 
to call down all danger upon himself rather than suffer 
any injury to arrive to his helpless brood. 
Towards autumn, in the month of October, his cheerful 
song nearly ceases, or is now changed into a single plain- 
tive note of tshdy-wit , while he passes with his flitting 
companions over the fading woods ; and as his song first 
brought the welcome intelligence of spring, so now his mel- 
ancholy plaint presages, but too truly, the silent and 
mournful decay of nature. Even when the leaves have fal- 
len, and the forest no longer affords a shelter from the 
blast, the faithful Blue-Bird still lingers over his native 
fields, and only takes his departure in November, when, at 
a considerable elevation, in the early twilight of the morn- 
ing, till the opening of the day, they wing their way in 
small roving troops to some milder regions in the South. 
But yet, after this period, in the Middle States, with every 
return of moderate weather, we hear his sad note in the 
fields, or in the air, as if deploring the ravages of winter ; 
and so frequent are his visits, that he may be said to 
follow fair weather through all his wanderings till the 
permanent return of spring. 
The Blue-Bird is about 7J inches long. The wings remarkably full 
and broad. Above a rich sky-blue. Inner vanes of the quills and their 
shafts dusky, the outer blue. Beneath ferruginous ; belly and vent 
white. Bill and legs black. Inside of the mouth and soles of the 
feet yellow; the claws very sharp, Iris golden. — The female is of 
much duller colors both above and beneath ; the whole back and 
head, except the wings, is almost of a lead-color, with faint tints 
only of blue. — From an accidental injury to the upper mandible, 1 
have seen a specimen in which the bill was much lengthened and 
nearly crossed as in the Loxia. 
38 * 
