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 chanar 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. 



