56



S. Porter—A West Indian Diary



link between tbe Grosbeaks and the true Tanagers. It has the same

build and looks very muck like one of tbe large North American

Grosbeaks. These birds are comparatively tame and allow one to

get quite close to admire their lovely plumage, in fact I spent the most

enjoyable part of my short stay on the island in watching these lovely

birds as they moved and turned their bodies about as if to display the

wonderful combinations of colour to the observer as they sit in the

small fir trees with which the island is mainly covered. The birds go

about either singly or in pairs but I seemed to see a preponderance of

males. The birds seem to feed mainly on the small yellow currant-like

berries of a certain shrub which is common on the wilder parts of the

island.


The Tanagers would make prime favourites as aviary birds and I

wonder that none have ever been imported. I did not bother to try

and obtain any in the Bahamas as I thought I might be able to secure

a closely allied bird from Haiti but in this I was disappointed. Birds

of this genus are found in most of the West Indian islands and they

differ but little from each other.


Another bird no doubt closely allied to the foregoing is the beautiful

so called Bahama Bullfinch (Loxigilla violacea), a much larger bird

than our native Bullfinch and much more striking in colour, being

of a deep velvety-black with the throat, forehead, and a line over the

eye and the under tail-coverts, a bright chestnut red. These birds

are the denizens of the thick scrub on New Providence and at once

attract the attention of the traveller by their striking plumage which

is very noticeable against the light green foliage of the jungle-like

vegetation. That these birds are quite common is evinced by the

fact that the birds’ peculiar cricket-like note or song can be heard much

more frequently than it is seen. In fact so commonly is this sound

heard as one progresses through the “ bush ” that one begins to wonder

if it is not an insect after all which is making it. Like the Tanager,

the strikingly coloured cock bird is always much more in evidence

than his mate ; possibly because the latter was concerned with her

maternal duties. The female is much more sombrely clad than her

mate and can easily be overlooked. The birds feed mainly on the

seeds of berries which grow so abundantly all over the island and no



