.«tiINTIIA. 289 



Latham's Fringilla temporalis, of his " Index Ornithologicus," ■■'- is founded on the " Temporal 

 Fmch " of his " General Synopsis of Birds." t As pointed out by Dr. Sharpe, Latham's 

 description of the latter is taken from drawings, and the definition is uncertain, the under parts 

 being described as white. It is somewhat remarkable that Gould, who knew this species well 

 and accurately figures it in his folio edition of the " Birds of Australia," on the opposite page 

 also describes the " under surface white." This lapsus calami evidently remained undetected by 

 Gould, for it also occurs in his " Handbook of the Birds of Australia," printed many years after. 



In New South Wales I have never heard any other name applied to this species than that 

 of " Red-head," but in Dr. A. E. Butler's " Foreign Finches in Captivity," he there designates 

 it the "Sydney Waxbill;" the latter half of this name I have sometimes heard it called in 

 Victoria. .Although apt to be confounded with Zoiurgiuthus helliis, " P'ire-tail" was another local 

 name it was well known by to bird-nesting boys around Melbourne. Favourite haunts in the 

 proximity of the latter city were the tea-tree swamps, close to the Yarra River, near Heidelberg 

 and lower down at the mouth of Gardiner's Creek, near Toorak, where it entered the same river. 



It is abundantly distributed near Sydney, giving preference to tea-tree scrubs, and low 

 vine-covered trees bordering the sides of creeks intersecting well grassed lands; also open forest 

 country with a light undergrowth. 



Stomachs of these birds obtained in the neighbourhood of Sydney, usually contained grass- 

 seeds in summer and autumn, and insects, with which were intermingled a few seeds of small 

 wild fruits, in winter and early spring. '■ Red-head" trapping is a favourite pastime of boys in 

 the neighbourhood of Sydney, and young trappers may be frequently met with about suburban 

 railway stations, or in the bush. Wire cage-like structures, about a foot in length, with a captive 

 call bird in one half and a spring trap baited with canary seed in the other, is the usual means 

 of catching them. As previously pointed out. Whip-birds (Pspphodcs crepitans) \_ have been 

 caught in the traps set for this species. Mr. R. X . Meikle, who brought me a Whip-bird so 

 procured, is the only one that I have known to successfully breed the Red-eyebrowed Finch in 

 captivity. He informed me that he trapped a pair of young Red-eye-browed Finches in 1904, 

 and as he returned home late placed them in a large wire cage with a bandicoot. On the 

 following morning he found one of them with its head off, in the grass nest of the bandicoot. 

 The remaining one he kept for some time, and then using it as a call bird trapped another one, 

 and put them both in an outside aviary, with some Canaries. One day all the birds escaped 

 through the door being left open, and much to his surprise, although they had been free only 

 about an hour, both of the Red-eyebrowed Finches were busy carrying grass into a low gum 

 sapling in a garden opposite. He soon succeeded in trapping both again by the aid of some 

 canary seed only as a lure. This was in October, 1905. On returning them to the aviary, he 

 supplied the Finches with grass, and they formed a nest in a few days, laying six eggs therein, 

 out of which four young ones were hatched and successfully reared. I saw these birds from the 

 time of their nest-building until the young ones were fully fledged, and Canaries were breeding 

 at the same time in the aviary. The old pair of birds are still alive, and are remarkably tame. 

 With a twelve-doored trap and call bird, placed on a creek side under a dead Apple tree, Mr. 

 Meikle informs me that in a deserted orchard at Roseville he succeeded in catching fourteen 

 birds in twenty minutes out of a flock of about twenty in number. All the springs were released, 

 eight of the compartments of the trap containing each a single bird, and three of them two birds 

 in each. As a school boy at the time, he said he went home delighted with his trap full. .-\s 

 an instance of how tame these birds become, and attached to their owner, Mr. Meikle informs 

 me one of his school fellows living near him used, in the summer months, to release a pair of 

 these birds he had trapped, and had in confinement some time; every afternoon on arriving home 

 from school, the birds returned again to the cage about 7.30 p.m. 



♦ Ind. Orn., p. XLVIII. (1802.) f Gen. Syn. Bds., Suppl. II , p. 211. J Antea, Vol. I., p. 336. 



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