Long-tailed Grass finches. 63 



and makes short work of chewing up wood. His wife spends 

 n:ost of her time hollowing- out a large, old walnut tree, and 

 climbing inside the old trunk, chattering and screeching to 

 herself. As far as I can see, much as she likes her husband to 

 M> about with, and to amuse herself with generally, she won't 

 allow him inside her walnut tree. It's her preserve, and he 

 seems to know it. They are powerful and graceful on the wing. 

 I feed these birds, and the other two parrakeets at liberty, in a 

 special feeding box, which I designed and had made by a local 

 carpenter. It works so that ordinarily, the mouth of the box 

 is closed by a hinged and weighted platform, and can only be 

 opened by a fairly heavy bird standing on this platform. The 

 result is that the parrakeets can open it at will, and the sparrows 

 cannot; and this, besides being a great saving in the seed-bill, 

 also assures their being able to get food at all times, instead of, 

 perhaps, going and finding the sparrows have finished it all. 

 Of course, this box would be useless for small Lovebirds and 

 Budgerigars, as they would not be heavy enough to open it. 



Long-tailed Grassfinches 



(P. acuticanda). 



By E. S. Sprankling. 



As our Editor appears to wish for an account of the 

 breeding of Long-tails I will give my experiences of these birds 

 . in 1912 — 1913. 



I commenced with three yellow-beaked birds, two cocks 

 and one hen, purchasing them in February 1912, and, turning 

 them into a covered brick-built aviary, they quickly made 

 themselves comfortable in a box some I5ins. long, filled with 

 hay. One pair kept at one end, and the odd male at the other 

 end; this odd bird was occasionally chased about by one of the 

 others, who evidently was under the impression that " Two's 

 company; three's a crowd." 



When April came — the 14th of this month to be precise — 

 1 allowed the birds to take themselves into a larger wild-planted 

 OV-tdoor flight adjoining. In a 4^in. wall of this flight were 



