LESSER DIUCA FINCH 53 
coming daylight is visible, and at that dark silent 
hour the notes may be heard at a great distance and 
sound wonderfully sweet and impressive. During 
the cold season, when they live in companies, the 
singing-time is in the evening, when the birds are 
gathered in some thick-foliaged tree or bush which 
they have chosen for a winter roosting-place. This 
winter-evening song is a hurried twittering, and 
utterly unlike the serene note of the male bird heard 
on summer mornings. A little while after sunset 
the flock bursts into a concert, which lasts several 
minutes, sinking and growing louder by turns, 
during which it is scarcely possible to distinguish 
the notes of individuals. Then follows an interval of 
silence, after which the singing is again renewed very 
suddenly and as suddenly ended. For an hour after 
sunset, and when all other late singers, like the Mimus, 
have long been silent, this fitful impetuous singing is 
continued. Close by a house on the Rio Negro, in 
which I spent several months, there were three very 
large chafiar bushes, where a multitude of Diuca 
Finches used to roost, and they never missed singing 
in the evening, however cold or rainy the weather 
happened to be. So fond were they of this charm- 
ing habit, that when I approached the bushes 
or stood directly under them the alarm caused 
by my presence would interrupt the performance 
only for a few moments, and presently they 
would burst into song again, the birds all the time 
swiftly pursuing each other amongst the foliage, 
often within a foot of my head. 
