About an inch larger than the English
sparrow.
Male -- Deep blue, dark, and almost black on the back; wings and
tail black, slightly edged with blue, and the former marked
with bright chestnut. Cheeks and chin black. Bill heavy and
bluish.
Female -- Grayish brown above, sometimes with bluish tinge on
head, lower back, and shoulders. Wings dark olive-brown, with
faint buff markings; tail same shade as wings, but witb bluish
gray markings. Underneath brownish cream-color, the breast
feathers often blue at the base.
Range -- United States, from southern New England westward to the
Rocky Mountains and southward into Mexico and beyon d.M ost
common in the Southwest. Rare along the Atlantic seaboard.
Migrations -- May. September. Summer resident.
This beautiful but rather shy and solitary bird occasionally wanders eastward
to rival the bluebird and the indigo bunting in their rare and lovely
coloring, and eclipse them both in song. Audubon, we remember, found the nest
in New Jersey. Pennsylvania is still favored with one now and then, but it is
in the Southwest only that the blue grosbeak is as common as the evening
grosbeak is in the Northwest. Since rice is its favorite food, it naturally
abounds where that cereal grows. Seeds and kernels of the hardest kinds, that
its heavy, strong beak is well adapted to crack, constitute its diet when it
strays beyond the rice-fields.
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