PAINTED BUNTING. 
241 
the orange tree ; I have also found them in a com- 
mon bramble or blackberry bush. They are formed 
exteriorly of dry grass, intermingled with the silk of 
caterpillars, lined with hair, anti lastly with some 
extremely line roots of plants. The eggs are four or 
five, white, or rather pearl coloured, marked with 
purplish brown specks. As some of these nests had 
eggs so late as the 25th of June, I think it probable 
that they sometimes raise two brood in the same season. 
The young birds of both sexes, during the first season, 
are of a fine green olive above, and dull yellow below. 
The females undergo little or no change, but that of 
becoming of a more brownish cast. The males, on the 
contrary, are long and slow in arriving at their full 
variety of colours. In the second season, the blue on 
the head begins to make its appearance, intermixed 
with the olive green : the next year, the yellow shews 
itself on the back and rump ; and also the red, in 
detached spots, on the throat and lower parts. All 
these colours are completed in the fourth season, 
except, sometimes, that the green still continues on 
the tail. On the fourth and fifth season, the bird 
has attained his complete colours. No dependence, 
however, can be placed on the regularity of this change 
in birds confined in a cage, as the want of proper food, 
sunshine, and variety of climate, all conspire against 
the regular operations of nature. 
The nonpareil is five inches and three quarters long, 
and eight inches and three quarters in extent ; head, 
neck above, and sides of the same, a rich purplish blue ; 
eyelid, chin, and whole lower parts, vermilion ; back 
and scapulars, glossy yellow, stained with rich green, 
and in old birds with red ; lesser wing-coverts, purple ; 
larger, green ; wings, dusky red, sometimes edged with 
green ; lower part of the back, rump, and tail-coverts, 
deep glossy red, inclining to carmine ; tail, slightly 
forked, purplish brown (generally green ;) legs and 
feet, leaden gray ; bill, black above, pale blue below ; 
iris of the eye, hazel. 
The female is five and a half inches long, and eight 
VOL. II. Q, 
