Obscrvatiuns of a Bird Lover. 89 



I pair Black-headed Mannikins (Munia airicapilla). 



T pair Zebra Finches (Tacniopygla casfanotis). 

 Also the foUowins^- odd birds: Spice Finch, Indigo Bunting. 

 2 male Cordon Bleus. 2 Weavers, and various odd Waxbills, 

 TO-ii Canaries, a Bullfinch, a (ioldfinch. two Redpolls, a Gold- 

 finch mule, and a Creat Tit. 



My birds, which are all in the best of health, have a good 

 supply of clean water every day in large shallow pans, and all 

 but the Budgerigars and Cockateels wash thoroughly. T supply 

 soft-food daily, also canary seed and hemp mixed, white and 

 spray millet, groats, and plenty of greenfood, and sometimes 

 a . apple. 



I have been successful in breeding Bengalese, Zebra 

 Finches, Ribbon Finches, and Budgerigars, and, considering 

 that I have not had my birds for more than a year, I think this 

 is very encouraging. I have, at the time of writing, a nice 

 brood of young Budgerigars nearly ready to leave the nest. 

 1 find the chief difficulty in breeding foreign finches is the 

 delicacy of the hens — recently I have lost, without any apparent 

 cause, three hen Cordon Bleus. 



My birds are so used to seeing me among them that they 

 pay little or no attention to my coming and going. I have a 

 stove always burning in the cold weather, and the wire cage it 

 is enclosed in forms a favourite roosting place. 



Observations of a Bird Lover. 



Compiled By W. T. Pagk. F.Z.S., M.B.O.U. 

 A friend wrote me the other day — she shall be nameless — 

 s letter so characteristic of a keen interest in birds, which had 

 been apparent in aforetime correspondence, that I decided to 

 pass parts of it on to readers of Bird Notes, not that it contains 

 much that is new, but as typical of the intense interest and care 

 in. the well-being of the birds she keeps, that leads to an 

 intelligent knowledge and appreciation of the birds' needs, and, 

 more important still, to an intelligent application of those knozvn 

 fundamental principles, without which there can be no humane 

 or successful bird-keeping, and. moreover, demonstrates that 

 keenness for knowledge in all pertaining to her feathered friends 



