Abstract
As mentioned in Part I, the inclusion of one or more New World Scarlet Ibises in the collection that included “Senegal Finches” received at Peale’s Museum in 1805 (Sellers, 1979, 206) might imply some connection with the “triangle trade” in African slaves. In 1807 the US Congress passed an act prohibiting the importation of slaves, which went into effect in 1808. Thereafter, the US had limited direct trade with Africa for the rest of the 19th Century, with New England ship owners turning their attention to whaling in the Pacific and the Arctic, and trade with China and Japan.
A few African birds continued to arrive in America in the first decades of the 19th century: more Crowned Cranes, as well as Ostriches, Pelicans, and Secretary Birds (specially collected in South Africa in 1834) (Thayer, 2005), but I have found no evidence of small cage birds until the 1840’s.
New England in the 1840’s had grown prosperous from whaling, sea-trade, railways, and industrial manufacturing, and had developed a vibrant and literate culture. In 1848, the English immigrant James Mann, “Taxidermist, Dealer in Birds, Natural Curiosities, etc.”, published The American Bird-Keeper’s Manual in Boston, where he maintained his shop. A good portion of this book is devoted to North American songbirds and canaries, but he did include a chapter on “South American, Asiatic, and African Birds”, which discusses a total of twelve species (Mann, 1848).
An unusually heavily-spotted Tulsa Zoo female Red-billed firefinch with its mate. At least four pairs have nested at the same time in Tulsa Zoo’s Desert Atrium. Nick Walters, photo.
Three are identified as African. Though all three are seed-eaters, none are estrildids: The “Broad-shafted” (Sahel Paradise) and “Red-billed” (Pin-tailed) “Widahs”, and the “Crimson-collared Widah” (Euplectes ardens). The estrildids are represented by Java Sparrows and Strawberry Finches (“Amandava, or Avodavine Finch”) and what Mann (1848) refers to as the “Senegal Finch, or Spice Bird” but states is “Found in various parts of Asia”! One might gather Mann (who did not use Linnaean names in this book) was discussing the Spice Finch (Nutmeg Mannikin) (Lonchura punctulata) but his description does not fit at all:
“This pretty little songster is still smaller than the Amandava, and its note, although not quite so loud, is much more harmonious. The female also sings, and if there are a pair in the cage, they will sit closely together and sing alternatively, the male first, and then the female... The male has the bill red; sides and fore part of the head and chin, black; the top of the head reddish, with black spots; the rest of the plumage is of a light reddish brown, spotted with black and brown. The female has the upper parts of a light brown; the lower parts, reddish gray”(Mann 1848).
While this description is initially baffling, in light of Derek Goodwin’s (1982) observation that the Gold-breasted or Zebra Waxbill (Amandava subflava) is “very prone to induced melanism under adverse captive conditions”, it would appear that Mann’s “Senegal Finch” came from Africa...
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