88 PAINTED BUNTING. 



cage bird they have. The negroes often bring them to market from the 

 neighboring plantations, for sale ; either in cages, taken in traps, or in 

 the nest. A wealthy French planter, who lives on the banks of the 

 Mississippi, a few miles below Bayo Fourche^ took me into his garden, 

 which is spacious and magnificent, to show me his aviary ; where, among 

 many of our common birds, I observed several Nonpareils, two of which 

 had nests, and were then hatching. 



Were the same attention bestowed on these birds as on the Canary, I 

 have no doubt but they would breed with equal facility, and become 

 equally numerous and familiar, while the richness of their plumage 

 might compensate for their inferiority of song. Many of them have 

 been transported to Europe ; and I think I have somewhere read that in 

 Holland attempts have been made to breed them and with success. 

 When the employments of the people of the United States become more 

 sedentary, like those of Europe, the innocent and agreeable amusement 

 of keeping and rearing birds in this manner, will become more general 

 than it is at present, and their manners better known. And I cannot 

 but think, that an intercourse with these little innocent warblers is 

 favorable to delicacy of feeling, and sentiments of humanity ; for I 

 have observed the rudest and most savage softened into benevolence 

 while contemplating the interesting manners of these inoflfensive little 

 creatures. 



Six of these birds, which I brought with me from New Orleans by 

 sea, soon became reconciled to the cage. In good weather the males 

 sung with great sprightliness, though they had been caught only a few 

 days before my departure. They were greedily fond of flies, which 

 accompanied us in great numbers during the whole voyage ; and many 

 of the passengers amused themselves with catching these and giving 

 them to the Nonpareils; till at length the birds became so well 

 acquainted with this amusement, that as soon as they perceived any of 

 the people attempting to catch flies, they assembled at the front of the 

 cage, stretching out their heads through the wires with eager expecta- 

 tion, evidently much interested in the issue of their success. 



These birds arrive in Louisiana from the south about the middle of 

 April, and begin to build early in May. In Savannah, according to 

 Mr. Abbot, they arrive about the twentieth of April. Their nests are 

 usually fixed in orange hedges, or on the lower branches of the orange 

 tree ; I have also found them in a common bramble or blackberry bush. 

 They are formed exteriorly of dry grass, intermingled with the silk of 

 caterpillars, lined with hair, and lastly with some extremely fine roots 

 of plants. The eggs are four or five, white, or rather pearl colored, 

 marked with purplish brown specks. As some of these nests had eggs 

 80 late as the twenty-fifth of June, I think it probable that they some- 

 times raise two broods in the same season. The young birds of both 



