PALVTED BUNTING. 235 
I found these birds very commonly domesticated in the houses of 
the French inhabitants of New Orleans, appearing to be the most 
common cage bird they have. The negroes often bring them to mar- 
ket, 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 Bayou 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 benevo- 
lence while contemplating the interesting manners of these inoffen- 
sive little creatures. ee: 
Six of these birds, which I brought with me from New Orleans by . 
sea, soon hecame reconciled to the cage. In good weather, the males 
sang 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 
expectation, evidently much interested in the issue of their efforts. 
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 20th 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 so late as the 25th of June, think it probable that they 
sometimes raise two broods in the same season. ‘The young birds of 
both sexes, during the first season, are of a fine green olive above, and 
dull yellow below. The females undergo little or no change, but that 
of becoming of a more brownish cast. The males, on the contrary, 
are long and slow in arriving at their full variety of colors. In the 
second season, the blue on the head begins to make its appearance, 
intermixed with the olive green; the next year, the yellow shows itself 
