Of the smaller graminivorous birds, many kinds have been kept tame in their native countries, and have lived long; yet, as the highest authority on cage-birds[357] remarks, their propagation is "uncommonly difficult." The canary-bird shows that there is no inherent difficulty in these birds breeding freely in confinement; and Audubon says[358] that the _Fringilla_ (_Spiza_) _ciris_ of North America breeds as perfectly as the canary. The difficulty with the many finches which have been kept in confinement is all the more remarkable as more than a dozen species could be named which have yielded hybrids with the canary; but hardly any of these, with the exception of the siskin (_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