Argentine Ornithology Volume I Part 14

This pretty little grey-and-white Finch is common on the Chilian side of the Andes and throughout Patagonia, and also occurs in the Mendoza district. It is a tuneful bird, lively, social, and frolicsome in disposition; in autumn and winter uniting in flocks of from fifty to three or four hundred individuals; swift of flight, and when on the wing fond of pursuing its fellows and engaging in mock battles. The song of the male is very pleasing, the voice having more depth and mellowness than is usual with the smaller fringilline singers, which, as a rule, have thin, reedy, and tremulous notes. In summer it begins singing very early, even before the faintest indication of coming daylight is visible, and at that dark silent hour the notes may be heard at a great distance and sound wonderfully sweet and impressive. During the cold season, when they live in companies, the singing-time is in the evening, when the birds are gathered in some thick-foliaged tree or bush which they have chosen for a winter roosting-place. This winter-evening song is a hurried twittering, and utterly unlike the serene note of the male bird heard on summer mornings. A little while after sunset the flock bursts into a concert, which lasts several minutes, sinking and growing louder by turns, and during which it is scarcely possible to distinguish the notes of individuals. Then follows an interval of silence, after which the singing is again renewed very suddenly and as suddenly ended.

For an hour after sunset, and when all other late singers, like the _Mimus_, have long been silent, this fitful impetuous singing is continued. Close by a house on the Rio Negro, in which I spent several months, there were three very large chanar bushes, where a mult.i.tude of Diuca Finches used to roost, and they never missed singing in the evening, however cold or rainy the weather happened to be. So fond were they of this charming habit, that when I approached the bushes or stood directly under them, the alarm caused by my presence would interrupt the performance only for a few moments, and presently they would burst into song again, the birds all the time swiftly pursuing each other amongst the foliage, often within a foot of my head.

The eggs, Darwin says (Zool. Voy. 'Beagle,' iii. p. 93), are pointed, oval, pale dirty green, thickly blotched with pale dull brown, becoming confluent and entirely coloured at the broad end.

75. CATAMENIA a.n.a.lIS (d'Orb. et Lafr.).

(RED-STAINED FINCH.)

+Catamenia a.n.a.lis+, _Burm. La-Plata Reise_, ii. p. 488 (Mendoza); _Scl. et Salv. Nomencl._ p. 31; _White, P. Z. S._ 1882, p. 599 (Catamarca). +Spermophila a.n.a.lis+, _Sharpe, Cat. B._ xii. p. 106.

_Description._--Above clear grey; wing-feathers black, edged with grey; tail black, a large white blotch on the central part of each feather, the two middle feathers excepted; beneath grey, palest on the belly; under tail-coverts rufous: whole length 50 inches, wing 28, tail 22. _Female_, above obscure brownish buff, striped with blackish; beneath dirty white.

_Hab._ Peru, Bolivia, and Argentina.

Burmeister met with this Finch on the sierras near Mendoza, and White obtained a single specimen in Catamarca.

76. CATAMENIA INORNATA (Lafr.).

(PLAIN-COLOURED FINCH.)

+Sporophila rufirostris+, _Landb. J. f. O._ 1865, p. 404 (Mendoza).

+Catamenia inornata+, _Scl. et Salv. Nomencl._ p. 31.

+Spermophila inornata+, _Sharpe, Cat. B._ xii. p. 104.

_Description._--Above dull grey, clearer on the rump; wings and tail blackish, wing-feathers edged with grey; beneath grey, under tail-coverts bright chestnut; bill red; feet brown: whole length 50 inches, wing 25, tail 22.

_Hab._ Bolivia and N. Argentina.

Examples of this species were obtained by Weisshaupt near Mendoza in 1871.

77. ZONOTRICHIA PILEATA (Bodd.).

(CHINGOLO SONG-SPARROW.)

+Zonotrichia pileata+, _Scl. et Salv. P. Z. S._ 1868, p. 139, _iid.

Nomencl._ p. 31; _Salvin, Ibis_, 1880, p. 355 (Salta); _Gibson, Ibis_, 1880, p. 28 (Buenos Ayres); _White, P. Z. S._ 1882, p. 600 (Buenos Ayres); _Barrows, Bull. Nutt. Orn. Cl._ viii. p. 131 (Concepcion). +Zonotrichia matutina+, _Burm. La-Plata Reise_, ii.

p. 486.

_Description._--Above dusky grey, striped with blackish brown; the top of the head from the bill to the nape grey; a whitish stripe from the eye to the nape; between the stripe and the grey on the crown black; a narrow chestnut ring round the neck, widening to a large patch on the sides of the chest, the patch bordered with black on its lower part; beneath, throat white; breast and belly ashy white; bill and feet light horn-colour: whole length 57 inches, wing 28, tail 22. _Female_ similar, but duller in colour and a trifle smaller.

_Hab._ Central and South America.

The common, familiar, favourite Sparrow over a large portion of the South-American continent is the "_Chingolo_." Darwin says that "it prefers inhabited places, but has not attained the air of domestication of the English Sparrow, which bird in habits and general appearance it resembles." As it breeds in the fields on the ground, it can never be equally familiar with man, but in appearance it is like a refined copy of the burly English Sparrow--more delicately tinted, the throat being chestnut instead of black; the head smaller and better proportioned, and with the added distinction of a crest, which it lowers and elevates at all angles to express the various feelings affecting its busy little mind.

On the treeless desert pampas the Chingolo is rarely seen, but wherever man builds a house and plants a tree there it comes to keep him company, while in cultivated and thickly settled districts it is excessively abundant, and about Buenos Ayres it literally swarms in the fields and plantations. They are not, strictly speaking, gregarious, but where food attracts them, or the shelter of a hedge on a cold windy day, thousands are frequently seen congregated in one place; when disturbed, however, these accidental flocks immediately break up, the birds scattering abroad in different directions.

The Chingolo is a very constant singer, his song beginning with the dawn of day in spring, and continuing until evening; it is very short, being composed of a chipping prelude and four long notes, three uttered in a clear thin voice, the last a trill. This song is repeated at brief intervals, as the bird sits motionless, perched on the disc of a thistle-flower, the summit of a stalk, or other elevation; and where the Chingolos are very abundant, the whole air, on a bright spring morning, is alive with their delicate melody; only one must pause and listen before he is aware of it, otherwise it will escape him, owing to its thin ethereal character, the mult.i.tudinous notes not mingling but floating away, as it were, detached and scattered, mere gossamer webs of sound that very faintly impress the sense. They also sing frequently at night, and in that dark silent time their little melody sounds strangely sweet and expressive. The song varies greatly in different districts; thus, in Bahia Blanca it is without the long trill at the end, and in other localities I have found it vary in other ways.

The Chingolos pair about the end of September, and at that time their battles are frequent, as they are very pugnacious. The nest is made under a thistle or tuft of gra.s.s, in a depression in the soil, so that the top of the nest is on a level with the surface of the ground. The nest is mostly made and lined with horse-hair, the eggs four or five, pale blue, and thickly spotted with dull brown. Sometimes, though very rarely, a nest is found in a bush or on a stump several feet above the ground. Two broods are reared in the season, the first in October, the second in February or March. I have known these birds to breed in April and May, and these very late nests escape the infliction of parasitical eggs. When the nest is approached or taken, the Chingolos utter no sound, but sit in dumb anxiety, with tail expanded and drooping wings.

78. ZONOTRICHIA CANICAPILLA, Gould.

(PATAGONIAN SONG-SPARROW.)

+Zonotrichia canicapilla+, _Durnford, Ibis_, 1877, p. 33 (Chupat), et 1878, p. 393 (Centr. Patag.); _Sclater, Ibis_, 1877, p. 46, pl.

1. fig. 1; _Doring, Exp. al Rio Negro, Zool._ p. 39 (R. Colorado, R. Negro).

_Description._--Head grey, with narrow white superciliaries; in other respects like _Zonotrichia pileata_: total length 63 inches, wing 32, tail 26.

_Hab._ Patagonia.

Durnford found this species common and abundant on the Chupat River and in the interior of Patagonia. It has a pretty song, and sings in the evening and during the night when the moon is s.h.i.+ning. It nests among coa.r.s.e gra.s.s and herbage, making an unpretending structure of the former material, which is lined with fibres. It lays four eggs, pale green, thickly striated with light reddish-brown spots running into each other, and most numerous at the large end.

79. ZONOTRICHIA STRIGICEPS, Gould.

(STRIPE-HEADED SONG-SPARROW.)

+Zonotrichia strigiceps+, _Burm. La-Plata Reise_, ii. p. 486 (Parana, Santa Fe); _Scl. et Salv. Nomencl._ p. 31; _Scl. Ibis_, 1877, p.

47, pl. 1. fig. 2.

_Description._--Above light brownish grey, striped with black; centre of crown ash-grey, under the grey a broad rufous stripe, beneath which is a narrow grey superciliary stripe; behind the eye a rufous mark; beneath, throat white, breast pale grey; sides and belly yellowish grey; middle of belly white: whole length 62 inches, wing 26, tail 26.

_Hab._ Argentina and Patagonia.

80. ZONOTRICHIA HYPOCHONDRIA (d'Orb. et Lafr.).

(RED-FLANKED SONG-SPARROW.)

+Emberiza hypochondria+, _d'Orb. Voy., Ois._ p. 361, t. 45. fig. 1.

+Zonotrichia hypochondria+, _Burm. La-Plata Reise_, ii. p. 486 (Mendoza).

_Description._--Brownish grey, head darker; superciliaries white; wings brownish black, edged with greyish rufous; tail brownish black, four external pairs of rectrices with a long white mark on the inner web, the outer pair with the outer web also margined with white; beneath, throat and neck white; sides of head, mystacal line, neck and breast-band plumbeous; belly dirty white; flanks chestnut: whole length 60 inches, wing 28, tail 20.

_Hab._ Bolivia and Western Argentina.

Prof. Burmeister, who met with this species near Mendoza, says it is a true _Zonotrichia_, and not a _Poospiza_, as sometimes considered.

81. COTURNICULUS PERUa.n.u.s (Bp.).

(YELLOW-SHOULDERED SONG-SPARROW.)

+Coturniculus manimbe+, _Burm. La-Plata Reise_, ii. p. 486 (Parana); _White, P. Z. S._ 1882, p. 600 (Corrientes); _Doring, Exp. al Rio Negro, Zool._ p. 40 (R. Colorado); _Barrows, Bull. Nutt. Orn.