Читать книгу Favourite Foreign Birds for Cages and Aviaries - W. T. Greene - Страница 9

CHAPTER II.

THE CARDINAL FAMILY

(Cardinalidœ).

The Red-crested Cardinal—The Pope, or Crestless Cardinal—The Yellow-billed Cardinal—The Black-crested Cardinal—The Cardinal Grossbeak, or Virginian Nightingale.

IN this group I propose to include five species which are of frequent occurrence as cage-birds in this country: they are all natives of Brazil or the adjacent countries of Southern America, and can be readily acclimatised so as to pass the winter without injury to their constitutions in a garden aviary, where not infrequently they will be found to nest and rear their young.

The proper diet for these birds in confinement is canary- and millet-seed, grain-food of all kinds, ants’ eggs, insects of every description, especially caterpillars, and all kinds of ripe fruit when in season: they appear to be especially fond of raspberries and strawberries. Hemp-seed should never be allowed, as it darkens the plumage and changes the beautiful white breasts of the three first species described to a dingy blackish-grey.

The young require a large amount of food, and after the first few days are very clamorous while being fed. I found cockroaches, commonly known as blackbeetles, a very convenient insect, and all the young Cardinals I have had were reared on no other diet.

FIG. 1. THE RED-CRESTED CARDINAL.

THE RED-CRESTED CARDINAL, Paroaria cucullata (illustrated at Fig. 1), is a handsome, bold-looking bird, of a delicate ashen-grey colour on the back, tail, and wings; his face, chin, head, and upstanding crest are red; a collar round his neck, and all his under-parts, are pure white; his beak light horn-colour, and his legs and feet leaden-grey. He is about the size of a plump skylark, but a bolder-looking and more upstanding bird, and has a very passable song, which he is fond of rehearsing pretty well all the year round. The sexes are exactly alike in appearance, but the female may be known by her somewhat smaller size and less exuberantly boisterous deportment.

As these birds are extremely pugnacious during the breeding season, they should not be lodged with others smaller and more defenceless than themselves. The nest is built of hay, fibres, and roots, in any convenient bush; and the eggs, which vary from three to five in number, are small for the size of the bird, and not unlike those of a blackbird in colour and markings. The young can be readily reared on ants’ eggs and cockroaches, or any kind of insects available. Occasionally the male evinces cannibalistic tendencies—sometimes with regard to the eggs, which he will devour as soon as laid, and sometimes with respect to newly-hatched young, which he will destroy. In such a case he should be removed after the first egg has been laid, when the female will sit and rear her brood alone—the remaining eggs of the batch proving, as a rule, to be fertile. Incubation lasts from eleven to twelve days, and there are generally two broods in the season—the first in May or June; the second in August. In their native country, of course, the seasons are reversed; but the birds readily accommodate themselves to their altered circumstances.

I have found them to be extremely destructive to plants of all kinds. Some of their eggs which I have placed under canaries, were duly hatched; but the young died in a few days, apparently from inability on the part of their foster-parents to feed them properly; but no doubt if the eggs were placed in the nest of a thrush or blackbird the young Cardinals would be reared without any difficulty, and might then be permitted to escape, when, no doubt, they would soon become acclimatised and able to shift for themselves.

THE POPE, or CRESTLESS CARDINAL, Paroaria larvata, is somewhat smaller than the last-named species, which it closely resembles in its plumage, the great point of difference being the total absence of a crest in the case of the bird now under consideration: it is a native of Brazil, perfectly hardy if turned out during the summer, and no more to be trusted with other, and especially smaller, species than its larger relative with the crest. Like the latter, the Popes have bred in confinement; that is to say, in the comparative freedom of a garden aviary, for I have no knowledge of their nesting in a cage, or even in a bird-room, and from their shy and retiring habits think it is extremely unlikely that they would do so.

The sexes are alike in appearance, but the female is a trifle smaller than her mate, and has a more subdued and quieter manner than he has. The eggs resemble those of the Red-crested Cardinal, but are smaller: there are two broods in the season, of from three to five each.

THE YELLOW-BILLED CARDINAL, Paroaria capitata, is also a native of South America, and is crestless; it is smaller than the Pope, from which it differs not only by the colour of its beak, but also in that of the head feathers, which are brownish-red, small, and very closely set. The sexes are alike, but several females I have seen showed a trace of white on the wings.

This species would appear to be more delicate than either of the preceding, and to be more insectivorous in their habits. Some I at one time possessed appeared to suffer so much from the cold of their first winter in this country—to which their hardier companions seemed perfectly indifferent—that I was forced to take them indoors. They made a nest, but did not lay; so I have no personal knowledge of their eggs, which are said, however, to closely resemble those of their congeners.

I found them quiet and uninterfering with other birds, and the song of the male was very pretty; so that, on the whole, I can cordially recommend them to the notice of amateurs.

THE BLACK-CRESTED CARDINAL, Gubernatrix cristatella, is very generally known, especially by dealers, as the Green Cardinal, though upon close examination it will be found that it bears no trace of green in its plumage, which is coloured black and yellow; the crest is large, jet black, and very upright, and the bird itself about the size of a thrush, but owing to its crest, and longer wings and tail, it seems larger.

Like the rest of the Cardinals, this bird comes from South America, and is quite hardy. At the Zoological Gardens in Regent’s Park it has bred on several occasions, and also in the aviaries of several amateurs, but not in mine. The female is readily distinguished by her duller-coloured plumage, as well as by the size of her crest, which is not nearly as conspicuous as that of her mate.

At the “Zoo,” this bird is separated from the rest of the family and placed in a genus by itself—the genus Gubernatrix, of which it forms the sole representative: as well as the three preceding species, which constitute the genus Paroaria, it is placed in the family Fringillidæ—but erroneously so, I think, seeing that the Cardinals are, all of them, as much insectivorous in their choice of food as granivorous, or perhaps more so, and feed their young entirely on insects of all kinds.

FIG. 2. THE VIRGINIAN NIGHTINGALE.

THE CARDINAL GROSSBEAK, or VIRGINIAN NIGHTINGALE, Cardinalis virginianus (illustrated at Fig. 2), is a handsome bird, about the size of a thrush, that is very frequently imported from the southern parts of North America; like the rest of the members of the family to which it belongs, it will eat seed, fruit, and insects, but if kept on an exclusively granivorous diet it is frequently unable to reproduce its feathers—in which case it generally dies of atrophy or decline.

As the name implies, the general colour is scarlet—even the beak and legs partaking of the same ruddy hue—but the throat is black. The female is of a reddish-brown colour, and can at a glance be distinguished from her mate, who sings very sweetly, but, in my judgment, has no pretension to be called a nightingale.

These birds will occasionally breed in this country, but do so less freely than their grey or green relations; those I have had from time to time have not made any attempt in that direction, but other fanciers have been more fortunate. The eggs are said to be bluish-white, speckled with olive, green, and brown spots. The young resemble their mother, and have a dark brown, nearly black, bill. The treatment and feeding should be the same as for the rest of the Cardinals.