_Mountain Bulfinch_ (+Rob.+)—_Orange-bird._
_Tanagra Zena._
_Fringilla Zena_, +Linn.+
_Fringilla Bahamensis_, +Briss.+
_Tanagra multicolor_, +Vieill.+
_Spindalis bilineatus_, +Jard.+ and +Selb.+—Ill. Orn. n.s. pl. 9.
[64] Length 7³⁄₄ inches, expanse 13, flexure 3⁹⁄₁₀, tail 3¹⁄₄,
rictus ¹³⁄₂₀, tarsus 1, middle toe ³⁄₄. Intestinal canal, wide, but
only 7 inches long: no cæca. Stomach, a thin, almost membranous sac.
Though not very numerous, this beautiful bird is well-known, being
conspicuous from his brilliant colours. He is spread over the country,
from the mountains of the interior, to the plains of the coast. Rather
social, though perhaps attracted by a common cause, the abundance of
food;—we may sometimes see a dozen or more scattered over a large
bully-tree, from the twigs of which they hang in all positions, while
they pick the berries. Its flight is rapid, and performed in long
undulations: during flight, a low sibilant note is uttered; but it is
usually a silent bird.
About Spanish Town, it is called the Orange-bird, not from its feeding
on oranges, but from the resemblance of its plump and glowing breast,
to that beautiful fruit, as it sits among the dark green foliage. It
is also called the Goldfinch.
I shot a male in September, and wounding him only in the breast,
picked him up, more frightened than hurt. I carried him home in my
handkerchief, and put him into a large cage, where he soon became
quite a favourite. From the very first he was fearless and lively,
found the use of the perches immediately, and did not flutter or beat
himself against the sides, though persons stood close to the cage.
This was large enough to allow him a short flight; and as there were
several perches inserted at various heights and distances into the
sides, he spent a great deal of his time in leaping from one to the
other, seeming to enjoy it much. Seeing this, I put in one or two more,
which were no sooner ready than he took notice of them, stretching
himself towards them, cautiously at first, as if doubtful whether they
would bear him; soon, however, he ventured boldly, and then took them
regularly in his course. He always slept on the highest perch, with his
head behind his wing. He was in full plumage, and his gay breast, and
the fine contrasts of his striped head and wings, showed him off to
advantage. I knew nothing that he would eat, save the berries of the
bully-tree, none of which grew within a considerable distance. I first
tried him with a few insects, and small earthworms, but he took no
notice of these: then I gathered a few bunches of fiddle-wood berries,
which I had no sooner stuck into his cage than I was pleased to see
him hop towards them, and pick off the ripe ones with much relish and
discrimination. I was informed that in a wild state, he sometimes eats
the sour-sop; as I had none of this fruit at hand, I gave him pieces
of a ripe custard-apple and of a guava. He immediately began to eat of
each, plucking off portions of the pulp, and also taking up the fleshy
ovaria of which the former is composed, which he chewed with his beak
till the enclosed seed was pressed out. But all these were forsaken so
soon as I presented to him bunches of ripe pimento, black and sweet.
These he picked off greedily, masticating each in the beak, until the
seeds, which I suppose, were too hotly aromatic for his taste, fell
out. It was amusing to see the persevering efforts he made to obtain
those berries, which happened to be a little beyond his reach. He would
jump from perch to perch impatiently, gazing with outstretched neck at
the tempting fruit, then jump, and look again; then reach forward to
them, until in the endeavour, he would overbalance himself, and perform
an involuntary somerset. Nothing daunted, however, he persevered until
he ventured to do, what he had been several times on tiptoe to do, leap
on the bunch itself; and this he continued to do, though with some
failures, holding on in a scrambling way, now by a leaf, now by the
berries themselves, until he had rifled the bunch of the ripest.
After I had kept him about a week, during which his liveliness and good
temper had much attached him to me, though he made not the slightest
effort at song, I took him out to cleanse the feathers of his breast
from the dried blood that had flowed from his wound. I gently rubbed
them with a soft wet sponge, but whether he took cold, or whether I
irritated the wound, I know not; but on being returned to the cage, he
instantly began to breathe asthmatically with open beak, apparently
with pain; interrupted now and then by fits of coughing, which
continued all night, and on the next morning he died. On dissection, I
could not find that the shot had penetrated the chest, but they were
imbedded in the muscles of the forearm, and had broken the scapula.
A nest, reported to be of the Cashew bird, was brought me on the 18th
of June, taken from a pimento tree. It was a thick, circular mat,
slightly concave, of a loose but soft texture, principally composed
of cotton, decayed leaves, epidermis of weeds, slender stalks, and
tendrils of passion-flower, intermingled, but scarcely interwoven. I
think it probable that this had been sustained by a firmer framework;
and that the person who took it merely tore out the soft lining as a
bed on which the eggs might be carried. The child who brought it, could
give no account of this. The eggs were two, long-oval, taper at the
smaller end; 1¹⁄₁₀ inch by nearly ⁸⁄₁₀; white, sparingly dashed with
irregular dusky spots, in a rude ring around the larger end. The embryo
was at this time formed.