Ma)i)iikiiis. <.) 



There still remain four other species to mention in passing 

 from our incomplete list, viz : the White-headed, Tri-coloured. 

 Black-headed and Bib Finch. The two first named are also 

 noticeable and striking birds; so is the Black-headed when he 

 places himself against a background of light green, but he is lost 

 adid laurel, euonymous. cypress, and the like, unless very closely 

 observed. And now, lastly, what can I say in a few terse words 

 about the charuiing but insignificant looking" little Bib Finch, 

 the mannikin of the Mannikins ? Well, he has not much colour, 

 but he is small, only about half the size of the Bronze-wing, in 

 fact about the size of an Avadavat. but a little more stoutly built, 

 he is a free breeder, has plenty of vim and go, yet non-interfering 

 with the other occuy)ants of the aviary. True he has to be 

 looked for. but when foimd he is a quiet little picture well worth 

 looking at, and, unless it is nesting-time, his modest little wife 

 is never far away, and, when seen together amid the foliage of a 

 fairly large bush, the eye does not readily turn from them — 

 cuddled together, a wee-bit of life amid an immensity of green; 

 a pair in a large aviary of mine some years ago received the 

 cognomen of " The Babes in the Wood " — a not inappropriate 

 title. 



Now for my last paragraph: The hybrids mentioned 

 and illustrated herein have not been, in any single instance, I 

 think, deliberately bred, but are the result of the chance mating 

 of odd birds in the aviary. This has been the case with all the 

 hybrids, of any group of birds, bred in my aviaries, as I have 

 never deliberately tried to cross any species. This article has 

 been written against time and physical disability, because other 

 copy has failed to come in. 







Notes on Some Owls and Hawhs. 



By the late Lt. F. Davvsox-Smtth. 



[The following rough notes came to hand with others, and were 



evidently intended by our late member, not as an article, but 



as notes to prepare the article from. — Ed.] 



Burrowing Ov^'ls (Speotyto citniciilario). These quaint 



and pretty owls inhabit the burrows of marmots, and thus dwell 



