CARDINALS. 



133 



grey, eyelids white ; throat, breast, and flanks grey, 

 remainder of under parts white excepting the flights 

 and tail feathers, which are a little paler than above; 

 upper mandible greyish horn-brown, lower fleshy white ; 

 feet brownish flesh coloured, iris greyish brown. 



The female is slightly s mailer and altogether browner 

 than the male, the crest brown. Habitat, Brazil to 

 Venezuela and Colombia. 



Nothing is known of the wild life of this bird beyond 

 the fact that it hops about in the shrubs in company 

 with other Finches ; it has been once bred in Germany, 

 and Mrs. Howard Williams bred it in England in 1905 

 in a sheltered garden aviary. The nest was built in a, 

 laurel bush upon a foundation of fibre, scraps of paper, 

 hair from a white Pomeranian, fragments of Ostrich 

 leather, and a shaving or two ; the open nest was 

 entirely constructed of rope-fibre, with no lining, was 

 barely 2 in. in diameter and shallow. Three large pure 

 white eggs were laid early in July, the first being 

 hatched on the 14th and the two others on consecutive 

 days. On the 23rd one bird had died and been thrown 

 out of the nest, a second had left the nest and could 



HEAD OF PILEATED FINCH (MALE), THE CREST PARTLY 

 RAISED ; BEAK OF FEMALE IN PROFILE. 



flutter a little, the third left the nest two days later ; 

 both birds were reared, A full account of this interest- 

 ing experience is published in the Avicultural Maga- 

 zine, N.S., Vol. IV., pp. 30-34. 



The Pileated Finch appears to have no song ; but the 

 beauty of its crest and its confiding nature when caged 

 atone for its lack of vocal merit; its call note is a 

 rather shrill tsij). 



I found the males of this species less hardy than the 

 females, none of them having survived for much if at 

 all longer than one year, whereas one of my own hens 

 lived about six years. 



RED-CRESTED FINCH (Coryphoepingus cristatus). 



Allied to the preceding species, but the male chiefly 

 vinous red with the same silky carmine crest as 

 C. pileatus ; the female altogether 'duller and paler, the 

 crown of the head and back pale brown. This bird 

 inhabits Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia, Brazil, Paraguay, and 

 Argentina. In its wild state this bi'rd affects 'open 

 country dotted with thickets of low scrub, high up in 

 which it constructs its nest and lays three or four 

 white eggs dotted with brown. 



This species is but rarely imported, although com- 

 monly obtainable in the market at Buenos Ayres ; had 

 I^not imported the bird myself I should, in all proba- 

 bility, never have purchased it, on account of its 

 usually high price ; as it was my three males did not 



live many months, having been brought over iin open 

 all-wire cages, and evidently exposed not only to wind 

 but to spray from the sea, the wire being quite rusty 

 when the cages reached me. 



I found these birds very friendly when associated 

 with hen Pileated Finches, and tolerably confiding as 

 regarded myself ; although they seem to have no true 

 song, they are decidedly pleasing birds, their call-note 

 is a soft and rather plaintive we-fwo. 



In their movements when hopping this and the pre- 

 ceding speciies shuffle their wings, after the fashion of 

 the Superb Tanager or the Liothrix. Being Buntings, 

 these birds should not be restricted to a seed diet, but 

 should have in addition a few mealworms or other 

 insects, and a little soft food daily. 



We now come to the Cardinal Buntings (the Green 

 and Grey Cardinals of the trade) : these birds, I find, do 

 best upon a seed mixture consisting of canary, oats, and 

 hemp, with a little soft food daily and an occasional 

 insect or spider. It has been stated that they are fond 

 of fruit, and I have known Paroaria larvata to eat a 

 little apple, but after experimenting with all the im- 

 ported species I came to the conclusion that none of 

 them really cared for fruit. 



GREEN CARDINAL (Gubernalrix cristata). 



The <cock bird has the upper jparts of an olive-greenish 

 shade, the mantle being longitudinally streaked with 

 black dashes ; the tail bright yellow, with the two 

 centre feathers blackish ; the crest, chin, and throat 

 velvety-black ; the beak black, with grey lower man- 

 dible ; a broad streak over the eye, and the sides of the 

 throat bright golden yellow ; breast greenish ; belly and 

 under tail coverts bright yellow. The hen, which has 

 been said to resemble the cock, is really very distinct ; 

 the streak over the eye in this sex is pure white, as 

 are the sides of the throat ; the breast is also brownish- 

 grey, and the yellow colouring is less vivid. The iris 

 of the eye in both sexes is very dark, almost black, and 

 the legs are dark grey. Habitat, Argentine Republic to 

 Northern Patagonia. 



Mr. Hudson seems to have known nothing about the 

 wild life of this bird, and Mr. 0. V. Aplin, in his article 

 on the birds of Uruguay, only says (The Ibis, 1894, 

 p. 169) : " I met with this fine bird in the wild state 

 only on one occasion, namely, on the 25th May, a day or 

 two before I came down to> the coast, when, riding 

 without a gun at the edge of the monte in the rinc6n 

 of the Arryo Grande and the Arryo Ojormin, I watched 

 a pair at close quarters in a tala bush. They are 

 sprightly, handsome birds, and are sometimes seen in 

 cages," but in captivity it builds a strong cup-shaped 

 nest of about the size of that of our Hawfinch, and lays 

 three or four clear green eggs, spotted (chiefly at the 

 larger end) with purplish black. 



The song of the male bird consists of three rather 

 shrill and one lower whistle, followed by a medley of 

 scroopy struggling sounds, as though ia number of dif- 

 ferent whistles were wrestling for mastery ; it is not at 

 all pretty. The red-headed Cardinals of the genus 

 Paroaria, which I presently have to consider, all sing 

 in much the same fashion. In feeding this and the 

 following large Buntings, not only insects, but soft food 

 p.nd fruit (whenever procurable) is sometimes, but not 

 always, accepted. 



The Black-crested Cardinal, as this species is some- 

 times called, is the most docile of the imported repre- 

 sentatives of the group, becoming perfectly tame, either 

 in cage or aviary, within a very short time ; it is also 

 the most easily bred of all the Cardinals, the only diffi- 

 culty being to provide living insects wherewith the 



