Part 26

These birds are believed in Jamaica to be the descendants of some pairs of the common Canary turned out. “A gentleman of the colony named Shakspeare,” observes Mr. Hill, “many years ago, touching at Madeira on his voyage to this island, is said to have procured several male and female Canaries, which he set at large in the fields about the rectory at Black River, where they have multiplied, and have become wild birds of the country. Many of our grasses produce farinaceous seeds, extremely nutritious, and supply quite a substitute for the canary-seed of the African islands. I presume our birds derive their intensity of colour from this sort of food. They are a beautiful variety of the natural stock. Of their song I have never been able to learn anything very distinct, except that heard in the thickets with other birds, it sounds neither loud nor thrilling, and can barely be recognised as that of the bird of the aviary. It is said to have lost all its versatility with its power. Though these imported Canaries have increased so much, as to be perceptibly common, they are confined to a very small range of country, being observed nowhere but in the neighbourhood of the place where the first colony was established. A friend writes me, between Bluefields and Black River.”

The evidence of the origin of these birds, seems thus very distinct; and yet the plumage is that never known to be assumed by the true Canary, while it agrees exactly with the Brazilian species, which, Spix says, “inhabits the fields of Minas Geraes, and is named Canary.” The plumage of the wild Canary, in its native islands, is said to be less vivid than that of caged specimens. It is possible that the Brazilian birds may have descended from imported birds; or, on the other hand, that the Madeira parents of ours may have been imported from Brazil thither; a case the more probable, from the fact of both being Portuguese colonies.

YELLOW-BACK FINCH.

Spermophila anoxantha.—+Mihi.+

Length 4⁷⁄₈ inches, expanse 8¹⁄₄, flexure 2⁵⁄₁₀, tail 1⁹⁄₁₀, rictus ⁴⁄₁₀, tarsus ⁸⁄₁₀, middle toe ⁶⁄₁₀. Irides hazel; feet blackish flesh-colour; beak black.

Male. Head and breast black. Back yellow, becoming greenish towards the rump, and merging into black on the tail. Wing-coverts yellow, brightest at shoulder; quills, and tail feathers edged with yellow. Belly greyish; under tail-coverts brick-red.

Female. Upper parts olive yellow, bright on shoulders, dull on head and rump. Under parts ashy grey.

Latham (Syn. ii. 300) confounds this with the Black-face Grass-quit.

Though hitherto undescribed, this pretty species is not rare: among the dark green pimento groves of Mount Edgecumbe, it may be almost always met with, and the contrast of its black head and yellow back, renders it conspicuous. Various seeds and small berries afford it food; in April I have seen it eagerly picking off the little crimson berries of the fiddlewood, and swallowing them; and in autumn I have shot one engaged in feeding on the seeds of the prickly-yellow tree. Probably grass-seed forms a part of its nutriment; late in the year when the guinea-grass is ripe, I have observed them flitting about from tussock to tussock.

Its musical powers are but small. I have never heard any note proceed from it, but tsip, tsip, tseep, tēēsp, loud and shrill, repeated at short intervals, as it hops from twig to twig.

Early in June I found a nest of the Yellow-back. Over a gap leading out of a negro yard into the high road, at the back of Content cottage, hung down a dead limb of a large logwood, that was almost covered by bunches of Tillandsia usneoides. Just at the extremity of the depending twigs, not more than five feet from the ground, and in the very path frequented by the people and the animals, in the midst of a large cluster of the tillandsiæ, the Finch had constructed her nest. It was a neat dome, somewhat like the head-part of a cradle, formed of dried grass, with a few bits of white cotton interwoven, but profusely set on the outside with the tillandsia, the down of which gave it a very woolly appearance. It contained three eggs, white, splashed with dull red, having a tendency to form a crown round the large end. On this, as well as another occasion, the male was seen to enter the nest, as well as his mate, so that both probably assist in incubation. In the evening I went cautiously to the spot, and putting a gauze net suddenly before the nest, secured the female, which darted out into the net. Having identified her, I let her go, but in the morning, early, when I went again to the nest, there were no eggs within, but fragments of the shell of one lay on the ground at some little distance, which must have lain there sometime, for they were cleaned out by ants, and dry inside. Was this done by the female at finding the nest desecrated? or by the male, at not finding his mate? for on letting the bird go in the darkness, she in her fright flew in the opposite direction, and perhaps did not find the nest.

YELLOW FACE GRASS-QUIT.

Spermophila olivacea.

Emberiza olivacea, +Linn.+ Fringilla lepida, Ibid. Passerina olivacea, +Vieill.+ Spermophila olivacea, +Sw.+

Length 4¹⁄₈ inches, expanse 6³⁄₄, flexure 2, tail 1⁷⁄₁₀, rictus ⁷⁄₂₀, tarsus ⁷⁄₁₀, middle toe ⁶⁄₁₀. Irides dark hazel; feet purplish; beak horny black.

Male. Upper parts olive; a stripe over the eye, a minute one under the eye, and the chin and throat, rich yellow, narrowly edged with black; lower throat and breast black, merging into the olive; belly very pale olive; vent and under tail coverts almost white. Wing-quills blackish, edged with olive; edge of shoulder yellow. Tail olive.

In the female the black is absent, and the yellow is less conspicuous.

Immediately behind the homestead of Bluefields, a lane, confined for a mile or two between dry-stone walls, leads to the road which winds in a zig-zag line to the top of the Bluefields ridge. This lane possesses many attractions. By the wall on each side grow trees, which afford grateful shade, and many of them load the evening air with dewy fragrance. Orange-trees, profusely planted, give out in spring gushes of odour from their waxen blossoms, and in autumn tempt the eye with their “golden fruitage.” The Pride of China, lovely in its graceful leaves and spikes of lilac blossoms, and not less sweet-scented than the orange; the pimento, dense and glossy, with another, but not inferior, character of beauty; are varied by the less showy, but still valuable, cedar and guazuma. The various species of echites trail their slender stems and open their brilliant flowers, along the top of the wall, and the pretty Banisteria displays its singular yellow blossoms, or scarlet berries at its foot; while near the top of the lane, tangled and matted masses of the night-blowing cereus depend from the trees, or sprawl over the walls, expanding their magnificent, sun-like flowers, only to “the noon of night.” Here and there huge black nests of termites look like barrels built into the wall, whose loose stones, grey with exposure, and discoloured with many-tinted lichens, afford a sombre relief to the numerous large-leafed arums that climb and cluster above them. To the left the mountain towers, dark and frowning; the view on the right is bounded by a row of little rounded hills, studded with trees and clumps of pimento. But between the traveller and either, extend the fields of guinea-grass, which are enclosed by these boundary walls. In the autumn, when the grass is grown tall, and the panicles of seed waving in the wind give it a hoary surface, the little Grass-quits, both of this and the following species, throng hither in numerous flocks, and perching in rows on the slender stalks, weigh them down, while they rifle them of the farinaceous seeds.

In March, I have found the stomach of the Yellow-face full of seeds of the common pasture grasses; and I have been struck with the enormous dilatation of the membranous craw, which, as in the Gallinaceæ, occupies the hollow of the furcula.

D’Orbigny, who has given a good figure of it, in Sagra’s Cuba, alludes to its prevalence in all the great Antilles. At the Havanna, he says it is frequently caged, being very docile, and readily learning to sing. I have never heard from it any other note than a quivering chirrup as it flits from bush to bush.

Mr. Hill has favoured me with the following note. “Nests of the Grass-bird are frequently brought to me, but without distinguishing between the yellow and the black-throated species. A nest in the garden, built in a Nerium oleander, by the latter, [in July,] enables me to set down a remark or two. I see no difference in the structure of the nests of the two species. They are both domed nests, made of pliable dry grass, and lined with horse-hair. This nest is built between the forks of the long vertical stems of the oleander, or South Sea rose. Three other vertical stems press it close, and the leaves quite canopy it over. The substratum of the nest, on which it may be said to be bedded, is a mass of long linen rags, wound in and round the forked branch. It is quite true that the Grass-bird very frequently selects a shrub, on which the wasps have built, fixing the entrance close to their cells. I saw a nest in this secure situation a few years ago; it was pointed out to me as illustrating a habit of the yellow-throated species.

“The Grass-birds remind me much of the European Sparrow. They are very social, have a strong predilection for the house-garden, and when feeding by half-dozens and dozens together, are very noisy. They have a peculiar shrill chirp; and in the season when the grasses are in seed, their diminutive bodies, for they are smaller than wrens, may be seen weighing down the culm of the grass, everywhere about.

“On one occasion, some twenty or thirty of the Yellow-throated Grass-bird constructed a mass of nests, within the wide crutch of a baobab tree, and lived in common.”

BLACK-FACE GRASS-QUIT.

Spermophila bicolor.

Fringilla bicolor, +Linn.+ Chloris Bahamensis, +Briss.+

Length 4¹⁄₄ inches, expanse 6¹⁄₂, flexure 2, tail 1⁶⁄₁₀, rictus ⁴⁄₁₀, tarsus ⁷⁄₁₀, middle toe ⁶⁄₁₀. Exactly like the preceding, except in totally wanting the yellow; the face and throat being black.

Both of these birds are permanent inhabitants of Jamaica; their habits are so similar, that the detailed history of one will apply to the other. Both are quite common, and familiar; and both are unmusical: the present is more silent than the former; yet in spring its note may be heard, as it makes its short flights, a single harsh guttural squeak, difficult to indicate by words, and difficult to imitate.