Blue and Bluish 
England and New York migrate into Virginia and the Carolinas; 
the birds from the Middle States move down into the Gulf States 
to pass the winter. It was there that countless numbers were 
cut off by the severe winter of 1894-95, which was so severe in 
that section. 
Indigo Bunting 
( Passer ina cyanea) Finch family 
Called also: INDIGO BIRD 
Length — 5.5 to 6 inches. Smaller than the English sparrow, or 
the size of a canary. 
Male — In certain lights rich blue, deepest on head. In another 
light the blue feathers show verdigris tints. Wings, tail, and 
lower back with brownish wash, most prominent in autumn 
plumage. Quills of wings and tail deep blue, margined with 
light. 
Female — Plain sienna-brown above. Yellowish on breast and 
shading to white underneath, and indistinctly streaked. 
Wings and tail darkest, sometimes with slight tinge of blue 
in outer webs and on shoulders. 
Range — North America, from Hudson Bay to Panama. Most 
common in eastern part of United States. Winters in 
Central America and Mexico. 
Migrations — May. September. Summer resident. 
The “glowing indigo” of this tropical-looking visitor that 
so delighted Thoreau in the Walden woods, often seems only the 
more intense by comparison with the blue sky, against which it 
stands out in relief as the bird perches singing in a tree-top. 
What has this gaily dressed, dapper little cavalier in common 
with his dingy sparrow cousins that haunt the ground and de- 
light in dust-baths, leaving their feathers no whit more dingy 
than they were before, and in temper, as in plumage, suggesting 
more of earth than of heaven ? Apparently he has nothing, and 
yet the small brown bird in the roadside thicket, which you have 
misnamed a sparrow, not noticing the glint of blue in her shoul- 
ders and tail, is his mate. Besides the structural resemblances, 
which are, of course, the only ones considered by ornithologists 
in classifying birds, the indigo buntings have several sparrow- 
like traits. They feed upon the ground, mainly upon seeds of 
grasses and herbs, with a few insects interspersed to give relish 
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