68 



tlie head (or beads), be not killed and detached from the wall 

 of the gut, the worm (or worms), will only grow again, 



W. GkO. CRESWE!.!,." 



THE BIRD OF DEATH. 

 vSiR,— The startling paragraph which Mr. Swan has 

 excerpted from a lay paper is a good instance of how scientific 

 matters can be jumbled up by unscientific people. The symp- 

 toms given are a fairly good picture of the leading ones of 

 tetanus, and since the bacillus which gives rise to this disease 

 is found in the soil, (and indeed in some hot climates it is so 

 plentiful in certain localities that the natives simply use earth 

 to prepare their poisoned arrows), it might easily follow that a 

 bite on the part of any sharp-beaked bird, which had been 

 soiling its beak, might produce an attack of tetanus in the 

 person bitten. Such an isolated instance would naturally be 

 perverted by the ordinary journalist into a trait belonging 

 invariably to some special species. Even supposing that the 

 Rpir N'Doob is a bird which habitually seeks its food in 

 tetanus-laden earth, it is clear that the bird itself is not 

 " venomous," but that it is only a carrier of the noxious 

 agencies. Tetanus is not found in all soils alike. 



W. Geo. Creswei.!,. 



SAFFRON FINCH HYBRIDS. 

 Sir,— Can you tell me, through " Bird Notes," the best 

 way to get a cross between a Saffron Finch and a Canary. 

 1 know it is possible, and should like to try. 



E. Brooksbank. 



Without in anyway questioning the possibility of a cross 

 between the Saffron Finch and the Canary, I must point 

 out that there is no really well-established instance on record; 

 and that it is, at all events, a difficult hybrid to obtain. A bird 

 was exhibited at the Crystal Palace in 1899 which its breeder 

 believed to be a Canary x Saffron Finch hybrid, and which in 

 appearance supported this opinion— but it appears to have been 

 bred in an aviary containing a number of Canaries and Saffron 

 Finches, of both sexes, as well as other birds, and may have been 

 an abnormally colotired Saffron Finch. In that case the male 

 parent was supposed to be the Canary. The best way to obtain 

 hybrids is to turn the birds into an outdoor aviary, if possible 

 by themselves, but at any rate without examples of the opposite 

 sex of their own species. H. R. Fir.i,MRR. 



