112 



FOREIGN BIRDS FOR CAGE AND AVIARY. 



millet. During the first two or three days they washed 

 almost incessantly, so that whenever I looked at them 

 I was sure to see one or two bedraggled-looking, soaked 

 individuals. 



" By the end of the first week my birds were clean, 

 though ragged, and five of them appeared to be in 

 excellent health. Seeing them eating worms which had 

 crawled from below their water- pan, I dug some up and 

 offered them ; they seemed muoh pleased and quarrelled 

 for them. I also found that they were very glad to get 

 caterpillars and spiders. 



' Shortly afterwards, Mr. Williams called upon me, 

 ancl seemed gratified to find the Grosbeaks well and 

 cor.tented. In the course of conversation, he unfor- 

 tunately told me that, in Canada, the favourite food of 

 ti o Pine Grosbeak consisted of berries of the mountain 

 ash. Next morning, I put a bunch of these berries into 

 the aviary, and two of the birds immediately flew down 

 and devoured them. By the evening both birds were 

 staggering- about as if frightfully drunk; when they 

 flew towards a perch they missed it and fell heavily to 

 the ground. If I entered" the aviary they seemed scared 

 almost out of their wits, although naturally they are 

 tb.3 tamest and most gentle birds I ever ha'd, utterly 

 devoid of fear ; now they dashed wildly and blindly 

 against the wires, fell to the ground, staggered up and 

 flew off again madly ; they had constant diarrhoea., were 

 unable to see their seed, tumbled into the water, had 

 fit.? every few minutes, and after two or three days of 

 misery died. It is, therefore, clear that berries of the 

 mountain ash are deadly poison to captive Pine Gros- 

 beaks . 



" With August, came heavy and almost incessant rains, 

 and this did not seem to suit my Canadian birds, so that 

 by the end of the month a third had died in a rapid 

 decline ; it was a young male in hen plumage." 



My birds completed their moult in September, when 

 a young male died and was stripped of feathers by the 

 survivors; later on they also died, from which I con- 

 cluded that, our climate was too wet for Canadian birds. 

 The Pine Grosbeak is, without exception, the tamest 

 and most confiding of all the Finches ; if you hold out 

 your finger to him he will touch it with his tongue but 

 never bite, though, with his formidable beak he could 

 give one a very unpleasant nip if he chose. If my birds 

 got a sunflower seed jammed in the upper mandible, they 

 would let me hook it out with a finger-nail. With 

 plenty of space their disputes with one another consist, 

 like those of our Bullfinch, in making grimaces. The 

 call-note is eer, eer, and they use it when running along 

 the side of the aviary, following their master and asking 

 him for a dainty. They look like Bullfinches, but are as 

 large as Blackbirds. 



Mr. W. H. St. Quintin bred the Pine Grosbeak in 

 ont of his aviaries in 1906 (vide Avimltural Magazine, 

 N.S., Vol. IV. , p. 285). I do not know whether his were 

 European, or American birds. 



Dr. Russ speaks of the price of this species in Ger- 

 many as extremely variable ; he says that Gleitzmann 

 would not part with a pair for less than 24 to 30 marks, 

 whilst Fmstenburg offered the beautiful red male for 

 9 marks, the orange-coloured male for 5 marks, and the 

 female for 1 mark. I have never seen them offered for 

 sale in the London market. 



LONG-TAILED ROSE-FINCH (Uragus lepidus). 

 " General colour above brown, the feathers of the 

 back and mantle broadly centred with black, and 

 washed with dark crimson ; lower back and rump uni- 

 form deep rosy ; lesser wing-coverts dark rosy, the 

 feathers with blackish bases ; median and greater 



coverts blackish, edged with ashy and broadly tipped 

 with creamy white, forming a dark wing-bar ; bastard- 

 wing, primary-coverts, and quills dark brown, edged 

 with lighter brown, more ashy on the primaries ; inner 

 secondaries broadly edged with ashy white on the outer 

 web ; upper tail-coverts dark ashy ; tail-feathers blackish, 

 edged with ashy, the two outer feathers white for the 

 most part, except for an oblique blackish mark along the 

 inner web and along the outer web, the external feather 

 white along the outer web, with a blackish shaft ; crown 

 of head ashy brown with a slight rosy tinge, all the 

 feathers mottled with dusky centres ; fore part of the 

 head silvery white with a rosy tinge, the feathers 

 slightly mottled with dusky spots; lores and base of 

 forehead dark crimson; eyebrow silvery white, con- 

 tinued from the frontal band ; 'sides of face, ear-coverts, 

 cheeks, and throat silvery whitish with a rosy tinge, 

 M>mewhat lanceolate on the throat; sides of neck ashy 

 grey, mixed with rosy spots ; fore neck and breast deep 

 rose-colour, the abdomen dull whitish ; sides of body 

 and flanks sandy brown, streaked with dark brown ; 

 thighs ashy brown; under tail-coverts whitish, tinged 

 with rosy; under wing-coverts ashy whitish, washed 

 with rosy ; axillaries white ; quills below dusky, ashy 

 whitish along the inner edge. Total length 5.8 inches, 

 culmen 0.35, whig 2.6, tail 2.4, tarsus 0.6 (Mus. 

 Paris). 



" The female represents that of 17. sanguino- 

 lentus, but is more ashy and has none of the ibawny 

 tinge on the lower back and rump which is seen on the 

 last-named .species ; the sides of the body and flanks are 

 also brown, streaked with blackish brown, more coarsely 

 than in U. ecmffvinolentus. Total length 5.5 inches, 

 culmen 0.35, wing 2.55, tail 2.65, tarsus 0.65. (J/x. 

 Paris)." Sharpe. Habitat, China. 



The preceding description was made by Dr. Sharpe 

 from the type specimens in the Paris Museum, there 

 being at the time no examples in the British Museum 

 collection ; but it is just these rare birds that are some- 

 times dropped upon in numbers by trappers, so that 

 they become familiar objects in aviaries before they are 

 even represented in many collections of 'skins ; the 

 Yellow-rumped Finch (Munia fiaviprymna) is an 

 instance of this. Dr. Hartert evidently regards Uragu* 

 lepidus as a subspecies of U. sibiricux, but I have not 

 come .across any notes on the wild life of either. A 

 specimen reached the London Zoological Gardens in 

 1903. 



This concludes! the typical Finches. I shall next pro- 

 ceed to describe the imported species of Buntings. 



CHAPTER X. 



BUNTINGS (Emberizince). 



In captivity the species of Emberiza should be fed in 

 the same manner as the Chaffinches. 



THE GREY-HEADED BUNTING (Emberiza fucata}. 



General colour above deep red-brown streaked with 

 black, excepting on the rump, which is uniform ; head 

 and neck slate-grey ; upper tail-coverts pale brown 

 centred with blackish ; wings and tail dark brown with 

 broad fawn-coloured borders to the feathers ; outer tail- 

 feathers partly white on inner web ; lores, eyelid, and a 

 narrow ill-defined line over eye white ; ear-coverts 

 chestnut, with a small white spot on hinder margin; a 

 larger white spot on the sides of the neck ; throat white : 

 a narrow black moustachial streak joining a black gorget 



