Some Colony Birds. 89 



America.* 



I have been fortunate enuugh to rear several yellow- 

 t)ack Mocking-Birds. from the nest. It is difTficuk to do so. 

 All kinds of food mus/t be ofifered and much patience and 

 skill is required in administering it; for they have a wonderful 

 way of ejecting what they; have received, as well as of rudely 

 declining the choicest viands. Sometimes I have had to do 

 what the Government at home has been so much blam.ed for 

 doing; in regard to the obstinate hunger-strike suffragette. I 

 have had to forcibly feed them. It is some time before they 

 become accustomed to eat what one can supply them in place 

 •of the seeds and insects of their native habitat. 



The Yellow-Back, The Yellow-back Mocking-Bird 

 {Cassicus persicus) is a splendid fellow. Fully nine inches 

 in length, he is glossy black, with the exception of the rump, 

 vent, and under-tail coverts, which are golden yellow; there 

 is also a longitudinal bar of yellow on the wings. The 

 feathers are trim, sleek and hard. The slightly curved bill, 

 an inch-and-a-half in length, is also yellow and the upper beak 

 or maxilla is joined tO; the forehead by a rounded projection 

 after the naanner of the beak of a mediteval helmet ; hence 

 its nam^e Cassicus from Latin cassis, a helmet. A striking 

 feature is the eye, the iris of which is bright blue. His gait 

 is stately and altogether he ha,'S a military bearing. The hen 

 is like her lord but much smaller. 



Yellow-backs live in colonies and at nesting time much 

 noise and racket goes on. The nests are wonderful structures 

 of dried palm-fibre woven with great skill, and hung from the 

 ends of the branches of a tree, in size and shape like Indian 

 clubs. The eggs, two in number, are dull white with a few 

 small dots or lines of purple-red. They are comparatively 

 small, being only the size of Starlings.' The name of "hang- 

 nests " given these birds is by no means discriminative, for 

 many birds in the colony build nests after this fashion. The 

 ordinary cry, of the bird' begins wnth a sound like the creak- 

 ing of a bough in the wind, and changes into the hollow sound 

 of a Swiss cow-bell. 



*Note. — The real Mocking-Bird is the Mfmus polyglotlus, a grey 

 bird the size, of a large Thrush, with affinities both to Thrushes and Wrens. 



