Japanese Aviculture 



imported that specimens can often be procured 

 in London at ninepence each. The Japanese 

 have domesticated this bird, and bred from it a 

 white variety, which is an exquisitely beautiful 

 creature, the close snow-white plumage admirably 

 setting off the intense rose of the bill and the 

 paler pink of the feet and eyelids. These white 

 birds, of course, breed freely in aviaries ; they 

 are rather larger than the grey wild ones, and 

 more vicious in disposition, being given to toe- 

 biting and tail-plucking. Another point in which 

 they differ from the wild birds is the superior 

 song of the cocks, though their melody is nothing 

 very much to boast of. In Japan they are said to 

 be kept in white cages, though it is difficult to 

 believe that this has influenced the production of 

 the colour, since white varieties are often easily 

 raised by ordinary selection when once the varia- 

 tion has been obtained. 



The other domestic Japanese finch is the 

 Bengalee {Uroloncha acuticaudd), a little creature 

 about the size of our coletit. The natural colour 

 of this bird, as it occurs wild in India and China, 

 is a dark brown ; but the domestic specimens are 

 almost always more or less pied with white, and 

 sometimes white all over, while some are cin- 

 namon, and many pied cinnamon - and - white. 

 Indeed, almost all those imported recently have 



been of the last-named colour. They are funny, 



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