26 



111 the aviary which I have previously spoken of 

 as having been the scene of the Garden Warbler*s 

 animosity towards my birds, and which consists as 

 much of wire netting as of wood, I once kept a num- 

 ber of small foreigners for the space of two summers 

 and the intervening winter. They comprised Grey 

 and Green Singing Finches, Yellow-browed Seed- 

 eaters, Avadavats, various kinds of Waxbills (includ- 

 ing the Goldbreasts), Combassous, Whydahs, Chestnut 

 Finches, Zebras, Javas, a Sulphur Seedeater, and a 

 Phimbeous Finch. Although there were plenty of 

 cigar boxes nailed against the wall at the back, and 

 half a dozen or so of cocoa-nut husks hanging from 

 the roof, most of these birds persisted in roosting at 

 all seasons of the year on the swinging perch in the 

 open part ; and despite the fact that many of them 

 had been only a very short time before in their native 

 climates, they seemed to be quite impervious to the 

 effects of the frosts of England. For a considerable 

 time during this particular winter these averaged from 

 twelve to sixteen degrees below freezing point, and 

 once or twice as many as twenty-two degrees of frost 

 were registered in a night. Over and above this in- 

 difference to cold thej^ took no harm from the storms 

 of rain that occasionall}^ drenched them while roosting 

 out at night. At the end of October one of the Grey 

 Singing Finches built a nest in a cigar box and laid 

 three eggs, afterwards sitting the normal period 

 throughout one of the most persistent and densest 

 fogs that I ever remember ; but the eggs — fortunateh-, 

 shall I say ? — were infertile. About the same time a 

 Green Singing Finch laid her eggs in a bare box with- 

 out either building or sitting. Both these hens had 

 been imported during the preceding spring, and con- 

 sidering this I think that their performances, abortive 

 though the}' were, will justify the conclusion not only 

 that their respective species can claim to be hard}'. 



