7 r



ill Columbia by a Red-Rumped variety, otherwise they are

identically alike in all ways, and it is merely a matter of taste,

which is the most beautiful.


After referring to one more member of the same family,

I must leave the subject till next month, when I shall write of

some Tanagers I kept out there for a time, and, if space permits,

in the same article I will deal with the Hangnest family.


The last one for the present, is the Pale Blue Tanager

Tanagra cana. Besides being very beautiful, this appears to me

a most desirable bird to keep. It has such a wide range, that I

think it must probably be known to, and have been kept by some

of our members, although personally I have never seen it in

England. This bird is exactly the same shape and size, as the

Dusky Tanager, and like it, has also a melodious song. The

true Tanagra cana , were also very common at Santo Domingo,

and were to be found all day long among the ripe bananas.

The same bird, but a little larger, we found in numbers through¬

out Columbia, where they were frequently kept in cages. At

one house we lived in, in Cali, one was kept in a cage in the

“patio,” and although this was in the centre of a fairly

large town, not a day passed without my seeing two,

and sometimes three, wild ones together, of the same

kind, sitting on the outside of the cage singing. These

birds seem remarkably tame and confiding, and I never saw one

but what would readily come and peck at one’s finger through

the cage. In Columbia, they generally seemed to be fed entirely

on oranges, but in a few cases I noticed it was varied by a little

soaked bread. As I said before, these birds have a very wide

range, and if I mistake not, there are some four or five varieties,

varying only in size or intensity of colouring, and extending

throughout Central and Tropical S. America. I saw a number

of these birds in an obscure dealer’s shop at Cartagena, on the

north coast of Columbia. As boats run direct between Liverpool

and that port, it ought to be easy for dealers to obtain them for

us. Those we shot at Santo Domingo, were remarkably blue, of

a lovely pale blue all over, and the wing leathers and tail, of an

almost sapphire hue. In other localities, we found them more

of a lavender shade on the body. This bird is replaced on the

Eastern Side of the mountains by one of exactly the same size

and colour, but with beautiful white shoulders, more conspicuous

in the male than in the female. This kind we first met with, at

the foot of the Andes, at the head waters of the Rio Napo, and saw

it again flying among the palms in the centre of the city of Para,



