During winter, they are extremely abundant in all the Southern States, and more especially in the Floridas, where I found hundreds of them on all the plantations that I visited. The species becomes rare in Maine, still more so in Nova Scotia, and in Newfoundland and Labrador none were seen by our exploring party.
My excellent and learned friend Dr RICHARD HARLAN of Philadelphia, told me that one day, while in the neighbourhood of that city, sitting in the piazza of a friend's house, he observed that a pair of Blue Birds had taken possession of a hole cut out expressly for them in the end of the cornice above him. They had young, and were very solicitous for their safety, insomuch that it was no uncommon thing to see the male especially fly at a person who happened to pass by. A hen with her brood in the yard came within a few yards of the piazza. The wrath of the Blue Bird rose to such a pitch that, notwithstanding its great disparity of strength, it flew at the hen with violence, and continued to assail her, until she was at length actually forced to retreat and seek refuge under a distant shrub, when the little fellow returned exultingly to his nest, and there carolled his victory with great animation. At times, however, matters take a very different course, and you may recollect the combats of a Purple Martin and a Blue Bird, of which I gave you an account in my first volume.
This species has often reminded me of the Robin Redbreast of Europe, to which it bears a considerable resemblance in form and habits. Like the Blue Bird the Redbreast has large eyes, in which the power of its passions are at times seen to be expressed. Like it also, he alights on the lower branches of a tree, where, standing in the same position, he peeps sidewise at the objects beneath and around, until spying a grub or an insect, he launches lightly towards it, picks it up, and gazes around intent on discovering more, then takes a few hops with a downward inclination of the body, stops, erects himself, and should not another insect be near, returns to the branch, and tunes his throat anew. Perhaps it may have been on account of having observed something of this similarity of habits, that the first settlers in Massachusetts named our bird the Blue Robin, a name which it still retains in that state.