Chirps and 
Chatter. 
( 32 ) 
THE BIRD WORLD. 
FEMININE TALENT. 
One hears a great deal about the practice of sell¬ 
ing hen canaries as cocks, but it really seems as if 
there are a good many birds of the gentler sex 
about whose vocal abilities are enough to deceive 
anybody. I know one myself at present, a proved 
hen, which has laid one egg last spring and built 
any number of nests; and yet she sings as well 
as any ordinary cock bird, in good German style, 
and by day and night. 
I heard of another, now living, which laid fif¬ 
teen eggs during the past season, and when she 
was not doing this sang perfectly well. Yet an¬ 
other, deceased in the very act of singing some 
time back, is said to have not only laid eggs but 
hatched them, though she wasted so much time in 
music that the young were not reared. The suffra¬ 
gette movement seems to be even infecting our 
cage birds. 
A CHANCE FOR BREEDERS. 
Surely, however, these singing hens ought to be 
taken up seriously. Even if they often lay poorly 
and are bad mothers, other hens could be entrusted 
with the young, and a strain of canaries all of 
which could be guaranteed songsters would be a 
profitable possession, for as long as a bird sings 
the ordinary purchaser does not care about the sex 
at all; in fact, the two birds I mentioned above 
are highly valued by their owners. 
THE SCARLET TANAGER. 
Now that the young of Black Tanagers have been 
successfully reared in an English aviary, and par¬ 
tial success attained with the Scarlet Tanager, the 
following notes culled from “Bird Lore” about a 
different species of Red Tanager, from North 
America, will doubtless interest many readers. 
According to Audubon, this bird is susceptible to 
cold, and he says that, in the State of 
Massachusetts, should a sudden change of 
weather take place during their spring migrations, 
hundreds die in a single night, not only in the 
woods and orchards, but also in the towns and 
villages. It nests in the deep woods; the nest is 
a frail, cup-shaped structure built on to the ex¬ 
tremity of an overhanging limb. The clutch varies 
from three to five, greenish in colour, and much 
Spotted with brown and purple. It bears a good 
reputation for song, Mr. W. Dutcher classing it as 
one of their best song birds. It feeds on insects 
and wild fruits. The richly-dressed male is subject 
to many changes. In the nest it has natal down, 
which is followed by the juvenile plumage ; this is 
followed by the first winter plumage, very similar 
to the permanent plumage of the female. In the 
spring the bird assumes its first nuptial plumage of 
scarlet vermilion. Out of colour the male may be 
distinguished from the female by its jet black wings. 
The Brazilian species of these beautiful birds have 
been wintered out-of-doors in an English aviary, to 
which a well-lighted shelter shed was attached. If 
a constant supply of live insects could be kept up 
there is no reason why they should not be success¬ 
fully bred in a shrubby outdoor aviary. 
WILD CANARIES IN ENGLAND. 
Only recently I had the privilege of seeing no 
less than three dozen of these birds at a dealer’s; 
an interesting sight, since the wild originals of any 
of our tame birds (except the common duck) are 
really rarely to be seen. This is, of course, because 
no one wants birds which domestication has ren¬ 
dered so familiar, and is especially the case with a 
bird which man has improved so much as he has 
done the canary. The canaries which now and 
then turn up wild in England, although green like 
the genuine wild birds, are not likely to be escaped 
specimens of these, since wild ones are so seldom 
imported; probably they are escaped green tame 
birds, or the offspring of such, which have bred 
in a state of freedom, for some escaped canaries 
manage to survive. 
RAVAGES BY ROBINS REFUTED. 
In the “Scotsman” for Dec. 22nd, J. L. R. very 
properly points out that the “robin ” in a paragraph 
recently quoted there—“Robins steal fruit with a 
vengeance, and many an eastern farmer has been 
near distraction because of the ravages of these 
birds ”—is the American bird, a species of thrush 
(Turdus migratorius ). What the thrush tribe can 
do in the way of devouring fruit is well enough 
known over here, but it is hard that the harmless 
redbreast’s character should suffer by the publica¬ 
tion of his American counterfeit’s frugivorous 
behaviour. 
AMERICAN BIRD NAMES. 
It must always be borne in mind that the names 
of many familiar British birds were transferred by 
our countrymen, when colonizing America, to very 
different species. Thus, the American “Black¬ 
bird” and “Meadow-lark” are Troupials; their 
“Goldfinch” is a kind of Siskin; and their “Spar¬ 
row-hawk” a kind of Kestrel; their “Sheldrake” 
is our Red-breasted Merganser, a very different 
duck; and their “Yellow-hammer” is a kind of 
Woodpecker, oftener known as the Flicker. 
COMMON GULLS IN LONDON. 
The Gull common in London at this time of 
year is the small Black-headed Gull, though at this 
season its head has hardly any of the dark colour; 
but the large Herring-Gull has also been not un¬ 
common for the past few years. Only the other 
day, however, I noted for the first time specimens 
of the Common Gull—a species which is not any¬ 
thing like so common as the other two, in spite of 
its name, and much resembles the first in size and 
the last in colour. 
TWO RECENTLY DECEASED AVICULTURIST3. 
Dr. W. T. Greene’s article on the Heron in this 
issue has a peculiar and melancholy interest, from 
the fact of the recent sudden decease of the writer. 
He had always taken a keen interest in the pro¬ 
gress of “Cage-birds,” and his memory will be 
ever green among aviculturists as one of the 
pioneers of avicultural teaching, especially in the 
foreign bird section; it is doubtful if any writer 
has done so much to popularise foreign bird keep¬ 
ing here. 
Another recent and lamented decease is that of 
Mrs. Abrahams, widow of that very well-known 
dealer and keen and discriminating aviculturist, the 
late J. Abrahams, of St. George’s Stieet East. Mrs. 
Abraham’s health had been failing for some time, 
and just before her death she had given up the 
business she had kept on since the decease of her 
husband. 
