Passer ina cyanea . 
Peterborough, New Hampshire. 
] OQO 
lUi^U • 
July 5 
to 
Aug .15, 
Abundant, frequenting chiefly thickets of low bushes a- 
long the stone walls, roadsides and the border of woods. The 
males frequently perched and sang on the telegraph wires along 
the road to the village. They continued in full song up to 
August 8th (later than any other bird found here) but after 
the close of July their songs, although losing nothing in 
vigor and sweetness, were heard less frequently and chiefly 
in the early morning or at evening. My full record is 
July 6|, 7 i, 8f, 9 1, lo|, 11*, 12^, 18% 19% 20% 2 % , 24 1, 
83.*, 30.*, 31*., August lx, 8.x, 3*, 4* , 5.x, 6*., 7* , 84 (sang only 
once at sunrise), lQ^sang once, briefly and feebly, at sun- 
rise), 12*.( full song once 2 P.M. ), 14.x, 15*, 17*(once, 10A.M.) 
The song of the Indigo Bird, like that of the Phoebe, has 
a peculiar quality of harsh sweetness (metallic sweetness 
would be perhaps a better term in the case of the Indigo ). At 
its best it is one of the sweetest as well as most technically 
perfect songs that I know. The fine singers seem to have 
studied their themes with the greatest care for every note is 
distinctly enunciated and nicely inflected yet there is no 
trace of effort or self-consciousness in the smoothly flowing 
yet intricate strain. The inferior singers, ho’wever, stutter 
and hesitate distressingly . I have observed that they are 
usually in immature (i.e. brown-mottled ) plumage. The Indigo 
