black, brown, and pale ash; shoulders of the wings above and below, and lesser coverts olive yellow; greater wing coverts black, edged with pale ash; primaries light drab; tail the same, the feathers rather pointed at the ends, the outer ones white; breast plain yellowish white, or pale ochre, which distinguishes it from the Savannah Sparrow (Plate XXII, fig. 3.); belly and vent white; three or four slight touches of dusky at the sides of the breast; legs flesh colour; bill dusky above, pale bluish white below. The male and female are nearly alike in colour.

SPECIES 17.

FRINGILLA CYANEA.

INDIGO BIRD.

[Plate VI.-Fig. 5.]

Tanagra cyanea, LINN. Syst. 1, 315.-Le Ministre, Buffon, iv, 96. -Indigo Bunting, Arct. Zool. 11, No. 235.—LATH. Syn. III, 205, 63.-Blue Linnet, Edw. 273.-Linaria cyanea, BARTRAM, p. 290.-PEALE's Museum, No. 6002.

THIS is another of those rich-plumaged tribes, that visit us in spring from the regions of the south. It arrives in Pennsylvania on the second week in May; and disappears about the middle of September. It is numerous in all the settled parts of the middle and eastern states; in the Carolinas and Georgia it is also abundant. Though Catesby says that it is only found at a great distance from the sea; yet round the city of New York, and in many places along the shores of New Jersey, I have met with them in plenty. I may also add, 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 road sides, where it is frequently seen perched on the fences. In its manners it is extremely active and neat; and a vigorous and pretty good songster. It mounts to the highest tops 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, comTravels, p. 299.

*

mences 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; but 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, as it cannot be well represented in the figure, may be mentioned here, viz. that in some certain lights his plumage appears of a rich sky-blue, and in others of a vivid verdigrise green; so that the same bird, in passing from one place to another before your eyes, seems to undergo a total change of colour. When the angle of incidence of the rays of light, reflected from his plumage, is acute, the colour is green, when obtuse, blue. Such I think I have observed to be uniformly the case, without being optician enough to explain why it is so. From this, however, must be excepted the colour of the head, which being of a very deep blue, is not affected by a change of position.

The nest of this bird is usually built in a low bush, among rank grass, grain or clover; suspended by two twigs, one passing up each side; and is composed outwardly of flax, and lined with fine dry grass. I have also known it to build in the hollow of an apple tree. The eggs, generally five, are blue, with a blotch of purple at the great end.

The Indigo bird is five inches long, and seven inches in extent; the whole body is of a rich sky-blue, deepening on the head to an ultramarine, with a tinge of purple; the blue on the body, tail, and wings, varies in particular lights to a light green, or verdigrise colour, similar to that on the breast of a peacock;

wings black, edged with light blue, and becoming brownish towards the tips; lesser coverts light blue; greater black, broadly skirted with the same blue; tail black, exteriorly edged with blue; bill black above, whitish below, somewhat larger in proportion than Finches of the same size usually are, but less than those of the genus Emberiza, with which Pennant has classed it, though I think improperly, as the bird has much more of the form and manners of the genus Fringilla, where I must be permitted to place it; legs and feet blackish brown. The female is of a light flaxen colour, with the wings dusky black, and the cheeks, breast, and whole lower parts a clay colour, with streaks of a darker colour under the wings, and tinged in several places with bluish. Towards fall the male while moulting becomes nearly of the colour of the female, and in one which I kept through the winter, the rich plumage did not return for more than two months; though I doubt not had the bird enjoyed his liberty and natural food under a warm sun this brownness would have been of shorter duration. The usual food of this species is insects and various kinds of seeds.

SPECIES 1. M. TYRANNUS.

TYRANT FLYCATCHER, OR KING-BIRD.

[Plate XIII.-Fig. 1.]

Lanius Tyrannus, LINN. Syst. 136.-LATH. Syn. 1, 186.—CATES. 1, 55.-Le Tyran de la Caroline, BUFF. iv, 577. Pl. Enl. 676.— Arct. Zool. p. 384, No. 263.—PEALE'S Museum, No. 578.

THIS is the Field Martin of Maryland and some of the southern states, and the King-bird of Pennsylvania and several of the northern districts. The epithet Tyrant, which is generally applied to him by naturalists, I am not altogether so well satisfied with; some, however, may think the two terms pretty nearly synonymous.

The trivial name King as well as Tyrant has been bestowed on this bird for its extraordinary behaviour, and the authority it assumes over all others, during the time of breeding. At that season his extreme affection for his mate, and for his nest and young, makes him suspicious of every bird that happens to pass near his residence, so that he attacks without discrimination, every intruder. In the months of May, June, and part of July, his life is one continued scene of broils and battles, in which, however, he generally comes off conqueror. Hawks and Crows, the Bald Eagle, and the great Black Eagic, all equally dread a recontre with this dauntless little champion, who, as soon as he perceives one of these last approaching, lanches into the air to meet him, mounts to a considerable height above him, and darts down on his back, sometimes fixing there to the great annoyance of his sovereign, who, if no convenient retreat or resting place be near, endeavours by various evolutions to rid himVOL. II.-Ll