Some Colony Birds. 87 



fully alive to the fitness of thin,^s. Held gently by the feet 

 and stroked on the bark, it may be trained to pour forth its 

 musical song: cliic-chic-chpek-clicek. It has a loud note for 

 for so simall a bird. Its ordinary song sounds something like 

 this: '' thef-fhet-thit, tliit. thct, wee, wee, chic-chic-ehic, are 

 you going away? don'i go away, don'f go aivayl" and all the 

 while it flips its wings and turns from side to side. It is, of 

 course, a fruit-eating bird, and thrives on yellow plantain. 

 I should prefer to call it the Jockey-sacki. 



The Buck-canary. Eiip/ionia violaceo, or the Buck- 

 canary, as it is vulgarly called, br in more polite society the 

 Louis d'or, is much larger than the Black-throat, being fully 

 four inches, bill and tail included. Like miniita it is blue 

 above and yellow below, but the yellow extends from tail to 

 beak, and the yellow of the forehead is rounded above. The 

 hen is a dull green, lighter below. Though it is called 

 violacca there is no violet about either sex. Like its smaller 

 cousin, it is a charming bird and readily takes to cage life. 

 A pair I once had actually fed two callow Cashew-Sackis 

 which I put into' their cage, having no other at hand at the 

 moment. They did it in a business-like way, eructating the 

 food frcVm their little throats. Unfortunately they took toll in 

 the shape of feathers. I was surprised to sec the young birds 

 becoming bare on neck and ba( k, and more surprised to see 

 their foster-parents by turns deliberately and calmly pluck out 

 the feathers and after turning them about in their beaks for a 

 while swallow them I 



Closely allied is the Euphonia cayana, or Yellow-sided 

 Sacki; being of the same size and form, but in colour a uni- 

 form dark, stet-ly blue, with a yellow patch of feathers on 

 each side of the breast, partly covered by the shoulder of the 

 wings. It fis (much rarer, and is seldom obtainable. I have 

 only seen one specimen in a 'cage. I am told tliai its habits 

 are e.xactly similar. 



The Yellow-Ventku Sai ki. .Allied to the charming 

 Euphonia is a group rightly called Calliste, that is, most beauti- 

 ful. I described one of them in my former article, the CaUiste 

 cayano, or Black-faced Tanager. Among these, the CalUstC 

 flaviventris, or Uold-tinch, as it is erroneously called, ranks 



