near the coast in North Carolina, but they were more numerous in South Carolina, and still more so in Georgia, especially the lower parts. At Natchez, on the Mississippi, they were comparatively scarce, but below Baton Rouge, on the levee, they appeared in great numbers. Around New Orleans they were warbling from almost every fence. Their notes very much resemble those of the Indigo Bird, but lack their energy, and are more feeble and concise.
Wilson met with these birds very generally in the houses of the French inhabitants of New Orleans. In the aviary of a wealthy French planter near Bayou Fourche, he found two pairs of these birds so far reconciled to their confinement as to have nests and hatch out their eggs. Wilson was of the opinion that with the pains given to the Canary these birds would breed with equal facility. Six of them, caught only a few days before his departure, were taken with him by sea. They soon became reconciled to their cage, and sang with great sprightliness. They were very fond of flies, and watched with great eagerness as the passengers caught them for their benefit, assembling in the front of the cage and stretching their heads through the wires to receive them.
These birds, he states, arrive in Louisiana from the South about the middle of April, and build early in May. They reach Savannah about the 20th of April. Their nests are usually fixed in orange hedges or in the lower branches of the trees. He often found them in common bramble and blackberry bushes. They are formed exteriorly of dry grass intermingled with the silk of caterpillars, with hair and fine rootlets. Some nests had eggs as late as the 25th of June, which were probably a second brood. The food of this bird consists of rice, insects, and various kinds of seeds. They also feed on the seeds of ripe figs.
A single specimen of this species was detected by Mr. Ridgway in Southern Illinois between Olney and Mount Carmel, on the 10th of June. It is therefore presumed to be a rare summer resident in that locality.
The Nonpareil is possessed of a very pugnacious disposition, and, according to Mr. Audubon, the bird-dealers of New Orleans take advantage of this peculiarity in a very ingenious manner to trap them. A male bird is stuffed and set up in an attitude of defence on the platform of a trap-cage. The first male bird of this species that notices it is sure to make an attack upon it, and is at once trapped. So pertinacious are they that even when thus imprisoned the captive repeats its attack upon its supposed rival. They feed almost immediately upon being caught, and usually thrive in confinement, Audubon mentioning one that had been caged for ten years.
This bird is very easily made to breed in confinement. Dr. Bachman has had a single pair thus raise three broods in a season.
The eggs of this species measure .80 by .65 of an inch, and do not at all resemble the eggs of the cyanea or amœna. They have a dull or pearly-white ground, and are very characteristically marked with blotches and dots of purplish and reddish brown.
Spermophila, Swainson, Zoöl. Jour. III, Nov. 1827, 348. (Type, Pyrrhula falcirostris, Temm. Sufficiently distinct from Spermophilus, F. Cuv. 1822.)
Sporophila, Cabanis, Mus. Hein. 1851, 148. (Type, Fringilla hypoleuca, Licht.)
Spermophila moreleti.
30524 ♂
Gen. Char. Bill very short and very much curved, as in Pyrrhula, almost as deep as long; the commissure concave, abruptly bent towards the end. Tarsus about equal to middle toe; inner toe rather the longer (?), reaching about to the base of the middle one; hind toe to the middle of this claw. Wings short, reaching over the posterior third of the exposed part of the tail; the tertiaries gradually longer than the secondaries, neither much shorter than the primaries, which are graduated, and but little different in length, the first shorter than the sixth, the second and fourth equal. The tail is about as long as the wings, rounded, all the feathers slightly graduated, rather sharply acuminate and decidedly mucronate. Smallest of American passerine birds.
The essential characters of this genus are the small, very convex bill, as high as long; the short broad wings, with the quills differing little in length, the outer ones graduated; the tail as long as the wings, widened towards the end, and slightly graduated, with the acuminate and mucronate tip to the feathers.
Many species of the genus occur in Middle and South America, although none not readily distinguishable from the single North American one.
Spermophila moreleti, (Pucheran,) Bonap. Conspectus, 1850, 497.—Sclater, Pr. Zoöl. Soc. 1856, 302.—Baird, Birds N. Am. 1858, 506, pl. liv, f. 2, 3.—Ib. Mex. Bound. II, Birds, 17, pl. xvi, f. 2, 3. Sporophila moreleti, Cab. Mus. Hein. 1851, 150.—Ib. Journ. für. Orn. IX, 1861, 4 (with synonomy). Spermophila albigularis, (Spix,) Lawrence, Ann. N. Y. Lyceum, V, Sept. 1851, 124 (Texas. Not of Spix).
Sp. Char. The top and sides of the head, back of the neck, a broad band across the upper part of the breast extending all round, the middle of the back, the wings and tail, with the posterior upper coverts, black. The chin, upper throat and neck all round, but interrupted behind, the rump, with the remaining under and lateral portions of the body, white; the latter tinged with brownish-yellow. Two bands on the wing, across the greater and middle coverts, with the concealed bases of all the quills, also white. Length, about 4 inches; wing, 2.05; tail, 1.90.
Female. Dull yellow; olivaceous above, brownish-yellow beneath. Wings and tail somewhat as in the male.
Hab. Rio Grande of Texas; south to Costa Rica. Xalapa (Scl. 1859, 365); Oaxaca (Scl. 1859, 378); Cordova (Scl. 1856, 302); Guatemala (Scl. Ibis, I, 17; Salv. Ibis, I, 468; nest); Costa Rica (Cab. J. 1861, 4); Vera Cruz, winter, alpine region, breeding (Sum. M. B. S. I, 551).
Spermophila moreleti.
The specimen upon which the preceding description of the male has been based is the only one in full plumage we have seen, and was kindly lent by Mr. P. L. Sclater. It was collected in Honduras. Some of the feathers of the back have grayish tips. The specimen described by Mr. Lawrence as S. albigularis, though male, is, in most respects, like the female, except that the wings and tail are darker, the color of the upper part grayer, and the interscapular feathers blotched with black. The black of the head is strongly indicated, the feathers, however, all with gray margins. In this and another, a little further advanced, from San Diego, Mexico, (4096,) there is a very faint indication of the black pectoral band, and there is no trace of the whitish of the rump.
Habits. This pretty little tropical form of Sparrow can only rest a claim to be included in our fauna by its occasional presence on the Rio Grande in Texas. It is found throughout Mexico and Central America.
Mr. Sumichrast found it throughout the State of Vera Cruz, except only in the elevated or alpine regions. Its common name was Frailecito. It was abundant throughout the hot and the temperate regions as well as the plateau.
This species was first met with near the Lake of Peten, in Guatemala, by M. Morelet, and was described from his specimens in the Paris Museum by Prince Bonaparte. Mr. Salvin found it a not uncommon species about Dueñas, where it is generally to be found amongst the tall weeds on the edge of the lake. It was also found at Belize. From a letter of Mr. Salvin, published in the Ibis of 1859 (p. 468), we quote the following in reference to the nest of this species, which is all the information we have in relation to this diminutive Sparrow: “A day or two ago I found two nests of Spermophila moreleti, and took one rotten dried-up egg from one with a young one in it. Nothing could be more different than this nest and that of S. bicolor, so well described by Mr. Newton. That of S. moreleti,
