The Rcd-crcsicd Finch.
The Red-crested Finch is found in Brazil, to Bolivia and Peru and northward
to the Aniazons and Guiana.
Mr. E. W. White {P. Z. S. 1882, p. 599.) mentions having shot this species "in
an open countr^v dotted with thickets of low brushwood, in which it skips about."
This is ver3- expressive of the action of Coryphospmgus, it moves by long jumps,
often using its wings, somewhat after the manner of Liothrix and Accentor.
Mr. Hudson does not seem to have met with Coryphospingus, for he gives no
new facts respecting it in his Argentine Ornithology.
The dealer who sent my birds home evidently fed them upon a mixture of
canary-, Iniseed, and German rape: but I generally gave them canary, white millet
luga seed, and Paddy rice, with which they were less wasteful; they also had a
few mealworms and cockroaches daily. Soft food thev did not appear to care forthough
insects of all kinds put them into a great state of excitement, causing the
fiery crests on their heads to rise, like that on the head of a Skylark.
I have never heard these birds sing; but the call-note, or notes (for there are
two) are frequently repeated after the manner of those of our Chiff-Chaff; only
they are low, plaintive, and musical, and sound somewhat like the words " IVe-two"
with a jerkiuess in the first word, then a pause and then the "tzuo". As a
matter of fact this statement by the birds was hardly correct, for there were more
than two 111 their cage, as I had paired them with my hen Pileated Finches, with
which they li^•ed in perfect amit}-..
The cage in which these birds were kept measures three feet in leno-th
IwentA- inches in height, and eighteen in depth from front to back; a deep nestbox
IS fixed up in one corner and partly filled with hay and moss: to this
snuggery the cock Red-crested Finches occasionally retired; but the chances are
that Plicated Finches would breed more readily in some sort of bush
Burmeister tells us that the Red-crested Finch "lives in pairs durin- the
Summer; but in Winter, in little bands on uncultivated fields of thistles- it ""nests
in dense scrub, tolerably high up, aud lays three to four white eggs mottled with
grey-brown from the obtuse to the pointed end."
"This beautiful bird is eagerlj- sought to keep in cages, in which it thrives
well and is fed upon crushed maize."*
^ La3-ard shot an example of C. crutatus at Para where he saw it on low shrubs
in a deserted garden.
This and the Pileated Finch are rather difficult to catch by hand, in a cage:
• I round that ,„y bird. ,vould not toucl, lhi.s food,- nor did they ,soeu. to car. for any soft food.
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