57 



^be (tonimon jfirefincb* 



{Lagonostida mininia). 



A translation from Dr. Kari. Russ'vS " Die fremdlandisclieii 



Stubenvogel." 



By E. HOPKINSON, M.A., M.B., D.S.O. 



With notes. 



{Continued from page 35). 



THIS account and all the other information which 

 Viellot gives, I can fully confirm from my 

 own experience, as the Firefinch is one of 

 the birds which German aviculturists have bred 

 frequently and most successfully; in my own bird- 

 room, (where it was the first foreign bird I ever bred), 

 the young have been reared with most fortunate results. 

 It was with these Waxbills (and then with Cut- 

 throats and Zebra-finches) that I gained my earliest 

 experiences, and as a result published in the pages of 

 the " Gartenlaube " the first description of their 

 acclimatisation and breeding in captivity. Although 

 I have been most successful in breeding these birds, 

 I cannot claim to have been the first to breed them ; 

 this honour belongs to Herr Leuckfeld of Nordhausen, 

 one of the earliest and luckiest of German foreign- 

 bird breeders, who was the first who succeeded in 

 breeding this, as well as many other species. Since 

 then these birds have repeatedly been bred by others 

 both flying loose in aviaries and even in cages (a). 



The Firefinch is a true Cosmopolitan, who knows 

 how to accommodate himself to every situation and 

 always derive the greatest amount of benefit from it. 



{a) The Firefinch has not been bred in England very often, 

 but Mr. Farrar in the Avic. Mag., October, 1898, reports that 

 he successfully reared one young bird in the summer of that 

 year in a cold indoor aviary, in which the parents had passed 

 the winter without any artificial heat either then or during the 

 breeding season. 



