INDIGO BIRD. 
237 
on the authority of Mr William Bartram, that “ they 
inhabit the continent and sea-coast islands, from Mexico 
to Nova Scotia, from the sea-coast west beyond the 
Apalachian and Cherokee mountains.” * They are also 
known in Mexico, where they probably winter. Its 
favourite haunts, while with us, are about gardens, fields 
of deep clover, the borders of woods, and roadsides, 
where it is frequently seen perched on the fences. In 
its manners, it is extremely active and neat, and a vigo- 
rous and pretty good songster. It mounts to the highest 
top of a large tree, and chants for half an hour at a time. 
Its song is not one continued strain, but a repetition of 
short notes, commencing loud and rapid, and falling, by 
almost imperceptible gradations, for six or eight seconds, 
till they seem hardly articulate, as if the little minstrel 
were quite exhausted; and, after a pause of half a minute 
or less, commences again as before. Some of our birds 
sing only in spring, and then chiefly in the morning, 
being comparatively mute during the heat of noon ; hut 
the indigo bird chants with as much animation under 
the meridian sun, in the month of July, as in the month 
of May ; and continues his song, occasionally, to the 
middle or end of August. His usual note, when alarmed 
by an approach to his nest, is a sharp chip , like that of 
striking two hard pebbles smartly together. 
Notwithstanding the beauty of his plumage, the 
vivacity with which he sings, and the ease with which 
he can be reared and kept, the Indigo bird is seldom 
seen domesticated. The few I have met with were 
taken in trap cages ; and such of any species rarely sing 
equal to those which have been reared by hand from 
the nest. There is one singularity which may be men- 
tioned here, viz. that, in some certain lights, his plumage 
appears of a rich sky blue, and in others of a vivid 
verdigris green ; so that the same bird, in passing from 
one place to another before your eyes, seems to underg-o 
a total change of colour. When the angle of incidence 
of the rays of light, reflected from his plumage, is 
* Travels, p. 299. 
