“In size the Indigo Bunting ranks with the small Sparrows, coming in grade between the Field- and the Song Sparrows, and being only slightly larger than the Chippy. The female wears a modification of the Sparrow garb, the upper parts being ashy brown without stripes, the underparts grayish white, washed and very faintly streaked with dull brown, the wings and tail-feathers having some darker edges and markings. “When it comes to painting the plumage of the male in words, the task becomes difficult; for to use simply the term indigo-blue is as inadequate as to say that a bit of water that looks blue while in shadow, is of the same colour when it ripples out into full sunlight and catches a dozen reflections from foliage and sky. A merely technical description would read: Front of head and chin rich indigo-blue, growing lighter and greener on back and underparts; wings dusky brown, with blue edges to coverts; tail-feathers also blue edged; bill and feet dark; general shape rounded and canary-like, resembling the Goldfinch. “The last of May one of these Buntings came to a low bush, outside my window, and, after resting awhile, for the night before had been stormy, dropped to the closely cut turf to feed upon the crumbs left where the hounds had been munching their biscuits. I have never seen a more beautiful specimen, and the contrast with the vivid grass seemed to develop the colour of malachite that ran along one edge of the feathers, shifting as the bird moved like the sheen of changeable silk. “The nest, in no wise typical, is a loose and rather careless structure of grass, twigs, horsehairs, roots, or bits of bark placed in a low, scrubby tree or bush at no great distance from the ground, and the eggs are a very pale blue or bluish white, and only three or four in number. [Illustration: National Association of Audubon Societies INDIGO BUNTING (Upper figure, Male; Lower figure, Female)] Order—Passeres Family—Fringillidæ Genus—Passerina Species—Cyanea “Being a seed-eater, it is undoubtedly this Bunting’s love of warmth that gives him so short a season with us: for he does not come to the New England states until the first week in May, and, after the August moult, when he dons the sober clothing of his mate, he begins to work southward by the middle of September,—those from the most northerly portions of the breeding range, which extends northward to Minnesota and Nova Scotia, having passed by the tenth of October. He winters in Central America and southward.