88 DESERT TRUMPETER BULLFINCH. 



lie gives a most interesting account of their habits.. 

 He says they are peaceful and gentle, very tame and 

 sociable with, each other, or with other birds. The male 

 bird sings in the late autumn and winter. They love 

 company, and constantly call to one another. He kept 

 his birds in a room with plenty of light, and when the 

 lamp was brought in they began their song. The 

 tone is sometimes clear and beautiful, but with a short 

 trumpet, or a prolonged drony or quaking sound, which 

 appears to be the key-note of their song, and to which 

 is often added various modulated tones, sometimes re- 

 sembling the purring of a cat. The ( ka, ka, ka,' which 

 they constantly repeat, answers, as a rule, one much 

 deeper, softer, and shorter. Rarely they may be heard 

 uttering a low chattering, like the little parrot; they 

 will also cackle like the hen, 'kekek, kekeek,' three or 

 four times in succession. Their alarm note is a loud 

 'schak, schaok.' When hunted and caught they shriek 

 with anguish. Their notes are almost without exception 

 so full and expressive, that we wonder how such a 

 small creature can produce them. The female has not 

 the trumpeting tone so loud as the male has in spring." 



"In confinement the first egg was laid on the 24th. 

 of April. They are four in number, rather large for 

 the bird, pale sea-green, or lighter, with small spots 

 and points of reddish brown, thinner at the smaller 

 end, and forming at the larger end a kind of crown 

 or wreath." 



The male bird has the top of the head and nape 

 ashy grey. The back more or less brownish ash-grey, 

 with reddish edges to the feathers; the greater wing 

 coverts, pale brownish, edged with rosy red; the pri- 

 maries are a glossy hair-brown, with their outer edges 

 fringed with rosy pink, their tips being bordered (the 



