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from watching the direction the parents take when carrying food 

 to them. However, as soon as they acquire the full use of their 

 wings they may be seen basking in the sunniest corner of the 

 aviary and generally on the ground. Their plumage by this 

 time will have become a uniform light grey with dark brown 

 striatious, the young males showing just a tinge of buff in the 

 superciliary streak, but no trace of the dark throat marking of 

 the adult male. The two outer tail feathers are white for the lower 

 half of their length, and the next pair of feathers are just tipped 

 with white. These three young Cirls did remarkably well. Two 

 are alive to-day ; the third I brought into the house to make 

 some notes on its plumage and, being called away to attend to 

 something, I placed it in a cage with a Crested Lark, and was 

 much grieved to find on my return in half an hour's time that 

 the latter had attacked and killed it. They are delicate birds 

 and require warmth and abundance of insect food for fully a 

 month after leaving the nest. 



I found it necessary to remove the other male as he was a 

 good deal driven about by the male of the breeding pair, though 

 there was no actual fighting. After the former had been re- 

 moved the latter, sitting one day on an apple tree close to the 

 aviary, saw his own reflection in the glass front of the latter and 

 imagined he had discovered his old antagonist. Jt was most 

 amusing to see him attacking the glass with much ferocity and 

 he would continue to do so for an hour at a time until I was at 

 last compelled to paste some brown paper over the glass to 

 prevent him from wasting his time and neglecting his family. 



Even this measure of success did not satisfy this wonder- 

 ful old hen, who built a fresh nest and laid two more eggs, and, 

 on the latter being removed, built a fifth nest and laid one egg. 

 Altogether she laid eleven eggs and reared six young. 



And now, having succeeded after four years' effort in pro- 

 ducing some young Cirl Buntings, I have scratched the name of 

 this species off my list- One adult pair I have given away to 

 one of our members, the Zoological Society have accepted the 

 young birds ; and the old pair in a few days time, when they have 

 quite completed their moult, will be released and will spend an 

 honourable old age in a well-earned freedom. I claim that one 



