YELLOW-BACK FINCH.[69]
Spermophila anoxantha.—Mihi.
[69] Length 4⁷⁄₈ inches, expanse 8¼, 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.