A History of North American Birds, Land Birds. Volume 2. Robert Ridgway

      Sp. Char. Male. Blue, tinged with ultramarine on the head, throat, and middle of breast; elsewhere with verdigris-green. Lores and anterior angle of chin velvet-black. Wing-feathers brown, edged externally with dull bluish-brown. Female. Brown above; whitish, obscurely streaked or blotched with brownish-yellow, beneath; tinged with blue on shoulders, edges of larger feathers, and on rump. Immature males similar, variously blotched with blue. Very young birds streaked beneath. Length, about 5.75 inches; wing, nearly 3.00.

      Hab. Eastern United States to the Missouri; south to Guatemala. Oaxaca (Scl. 1859, 379); Cordova (Scl. 1856, 304); Guatemala (Scl. Ibis, I. 17); Cuba (Cab. J. IV, 8); Costa Rica (Cab. Jour. 1861, 4; Lawr. IX, 103); Vera Cruz, winter (Sum. M. B. S. I, 552).

      In this species, which may be considered the type of the genus, the tail is slightly emarginate; the second quill is longest, the first shorter than the fourth.

      Habits. The common Indigo Bird of the Eastern States is found in nearly uniform and tolerable abundance in various parts of the United States, from the valley of the Missouri to the Atlantic, and from Florida to New Brunswick. It is a summer visitant, but rare, in Eastern Maine, but is common in the western part of the State, where it arrives early in May, and where it breeds. Mr. Allen speaks of it as not very common in the vicinity of Springfield, Mass., arriving there about the middle of May, and breeding in gardens, orchards, and the edges of woods, and making its nests in bushes. It leaves there about the middle of September.

      In the eastern part of the State it is very unequally distributed. In certain localities it has not been met with, but in other favorite places it seems to be quite common, and to be on the increase. In the gardens of Brookline and Roxbury they are comparatively quite abundant. Mr. Maynard gives May 10 as the earliest date of their coming. He also states that in the autumn they are found in flocks, and frequent roadsides, high sandy fields, and rocky pastures, which I have never noticed. According to Dr. Coues, it is common and breeds as far south as Columbia, S. C., and, according to Mr. McIlwraith, it is a common summer resident in the neighborhood of Hamilton, Canada West. Specimens have been procured as far west as Fort Riley in Kansas. It passes the winter in Guatemala, where it is quite abundant, though a very large proportion of specimens received from there, in collections, are immature birds. It was not found in Vera Cruz by Mr. Sumichrast, nor is it given by Mr. Allen as found by him in Western Iowa, while it was common both in Northern Illinois and in Indiana. It was, however, found by Mr. Allen, in Kansas, in considerable numbers, near Leavenworth, in the spring of 1871. It was not met with by Mr. Dresser in Southwestern Texas, though Dr. Woodhouse found it quite common in the prairies of that State, where its pleasant song was heard in the timber on their edges, or in the thickets on the borders of the streams in the Indian Territory, where it was quite abundant. It was not observed on the Mexican Boundary Survey.

      These birds were found, by Mr. Boucard, abundant throughout the State of Oaxaca, Mexico, having been taken both among the mountains near Totontepec, and among the hot lowlands near Plaza Vicente.

      According to Wilson, this bird is not noticed in Pennsylvania much, if any, earlier than its first appearance in New England, and it leaves at about the same time. He observed it in great abundance both in South Carolina and Georgia.

      In manners it is active and sprightly, and its song is vigorous and pleasant. It is considered a better singer than either the ciris or the amœna. It usually stations itself, in singing, on some high position, the top of a tree or of a chimney, where it chants its peculiar and charming song for quite a space of time. Its song consists of a repetition of short notes, at first loud and rapid, but gradually less frequent, and becoming less and less distinct. It sings with equal animation both in May and July, and its song may be occasionally heard even into August, and not less during the noonday heat of summer than in the cool of the morning. Nuttall describes its animated song as a lively strain, composed of a repetition of short notes. The most common of its vocal expressions sounds like tshe-tshe-tshe, repeated several times. While the female is engaged in the cares of incubation, or just as the brood has appeared, the song of the male is said to be much shortened. In the village of Cambridge, Nuttall observed one of this species regularly chanting its song from the point of a forked lightning-rod, on a very tall house.

      The Indigo Bird usually builds its nest in the centre of a low thick bush. The first nest I ever met with was built in a thick sumach that had grown up at the bottom of a deep excavation, some fifteen feet below the surface, and but two feet above the base of the shrub. This same nest was occupied five successive summers. It was almost wholly built of matting that the birds had evidently taken from the ties of our grapevines. Each year the nest was repaired with the same material. Once only they had two broods in one season. The second brood was not hatched out until September, and the family was not ready to migrate until after nearly all its kindred had assembled and gone. This nest, though principally made of bare matting, was very neatly and thoroughly lined with hair. Other nests are made of coarse grasses and sedges, and all are usually lined in a similar manner.

      Audubon and Wilson describe the eggs of this bird as blue, with purplish spots at the larger end. All that I have ever seen are white, with a slight tinge of greenish or blue, and unspotted. I have never been able to meet with a spotted egg of this bird, the identification of which was beyond suspicion. They are of a rounded-oval shape, one side is only a little more pointed than the other. They measure .75 of an inch in length by .58 in breadth. They resemble the eggs of C. amœna, but are smaller, and are not so deeply tinged with blue.

      Cyanospiza amœna.