_Spermophila anoxantha._—+Mihi.+
[69] 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.