in
(_Fringilla spinus_), have reproduced their own kind. Even the
bullfinch (_Loxia pyrrhula_) has bred as frequently with the canary,
though belonging to a distinct genus, as with its own species.[359]
With respect to the skylark (_Alauda arvensis_), I have heard of birds
living for seven years in an aviary, which never produced young; and a
great London bird-fancier assured me that he had never known an
instance of their breeding; nevertheless one case has been
recorded.[360] In the nine-year Report from the Zoological Society,
twenty-four incessorial species are enumerated which had not bred, and
of these only four were known to have coupled.

Parrots are singularly long-lived birds; and Humboldt mentions the
curious fact of a parrot in South America, which spoke the language of
{155} an extinct Indian tribe, so that this bird preserved the sole
relic of a lost language. Even in this country there is reason to
believe[361] that parrots have lived to the age of nearly one hundred
years; yet, though many have been kept in Europe, they breed so rarely
that the event has been thought worth recording in the gravest
publications.[362] According to Bechstein[363] the African _Psittacus
erithacus_ breeds oftener than any other species: the _P. macoa_
occasionally lays fertile eggs, but rarely succeeds in hatching them;
this bird, however, has the instinct of incubation sometimes so
strongly developed, that it will hatch the eggs of fowls or pigeons. In
the Zoological Gardens and in the old Surrey Gardens some few species
have coupled, but, with the exception of three species of parrakeets,
none have bred. It is a much more remarkable fact that in Guiana
parrots of two kinds, as I am informed by Sir E. Schomburgk, are often
taken from the nests by the Indians and reared in large numbers; they
are so tame that they fly freely about the houses, and come when called
to be fed, like pigeons; yet he has never heard of a single instance of
their breeding.[364] In Jamaica, a resident naturalist, Mr. R.
Hill,[365] says, "no birds more readily submit to human dependence than
the parrot-tribe, but no instance of a parrot breeding in this tame
life has been known yet." Mr. Hill specifies a number of other native
birds kept tame in the West Indies, which never breed in this state.

The great pigeon f