(SCREAMING FINCH.)
+Spermophila cærulescens+, _Scl. Ibis_, 1871, p. 12; _Scl. et Salv.
Nomencl._ p. 28; _White, P. Z. S._ 1882, p. 508 (Buenos Ayres);
_Barrows, Bull. Nutt. Orn. Cl._ viii. p. 92 (Concepcion);
_Sharpe, Cat. B._ xii. p. 126. +Sporophila ornata+, _Burm.
La-Plata Reise_, ii. p. 488 (Mendoza, Paraná). +Spermophila
ornata+, _Scl. et Salv. P. Z. S._ 1869, p. 632; _Durnford, Ibis_,
1877, p. 170 (Buenos Ayres); _Salv. Ibis_, 1880, p. 353 (Salta).
_Description._--Above pale smoky brown; front and lores black;
beneath, chin and upper part of throat black, with a distinct white
mystacal stripe on each side; fore neck white; broad band across the
chest black; abdomen white, slightly varied with grey and black on
the flanks; under wing-coverts white; bill pale horn-colour; feet
brown: whole length 4·8 inches, wing 2·3, tail 1·9. _Female_ pale
olive-brown; wings and tail darker; beneath lighter, tinged with
ochraceous; middle of the belly almost white.
_Hab._ Southern Brazil, Paraguay, Argentina, and Bolivia.
This species is a summer visitor in Buenos Ayres, and is one of the last
to arrive and first to depart of our migrants. These birds are always
most abundant in plantations, preferring peach-trees, but do not
associate in flocks: they are exceedingly swift and active, overflowing
with life and energy, their impetuous notes and motions giving one the
idea that they are always in a state of violent excitement. The male has
a loud, startled chirp, also a song composed of eight or ten notes,
delivered with such vehemence and rapidity, that they run into each
other and sound more like a scream than a song. There is not a more
clever architect than this species; and while many _Synallaxes_ are
laboriously endeavouring to show how stately a mansion of sticks a
little bird can erect for itself, the Screaming Finch has successfully
solved the problem of how to construct the most perfect nest for
lightness, strength, and symmetry with the fewest materials. It is a
small, cup-shaped structure, suspended hammock-wise between two slender
upright branches, and to which it is securely attached by fine hairs and
webs. It is made of thin, pale-coloured, fibrous roots, ingeniously
woven together--reddish or light-coloured horse-hair being sometimes
substituted; and so little material is used that, standing under the
tree, a person can easily count the eggs through the bottom of the nest.
Its apparent frailness is, however, its best protection from the prying
eyes of birds and mammals that prey on the eggs and young of small
birds; for it is difficult to detect this slight structure, through
which the sunshine and rain pass so freely. So light is the little
basket-nest that it may be placed on the open hand and blown away with
the breath like a straw; yet so strong that a man can suspend his weight
from it without pulling it to pieces. The eggs are three in number,
white and spotted with black, sometimes bluish-brown spots are mingled
with the black.