of the Seychelles Archipelago. 353 



pedes and beetles, and in one a small lizard ; so that it will not 

 be the want of food which will exterminate these birds. In 

 habits they reminded me of a Stonechat or a Redstart, con- 

 stantly jerking their tails and sitting with them erected and 

 wings drooping. There is no apparent difference in the sexes ; 

 one bird I obtained, which was evidently young, had some 

 slight reddish-brown markings on the white upper wing-coverts. 

 The note of the bird (I suppose of the male) is exceedingly 

 pleasant ; but it cannot, so far as my experience went, be called 

 a song, being only a succession of low soft notes, something 

 between the low notes of a Redbreast and the soft ones of the 

 Common Linnet. 



These soft notes are chiefly heard in the morning and evening. 

 They commenced even before daybreak, when the moon and 

 stars were shining, every tree seeming to contain one bird or 

 more. 



On one of the rafters in the house in which we slept, I was 

 ■ shown a nest, which I was assured a " Pie " had built some few 

 months ago, but had deserted. The bird had gained entrance 

 to the house through a hole in a plank of the wall. The nest 

 was a great straggling heap of dead skeleton leaves some seven or 

 eight inches in diameter, but I could not make out what its 

 shape was when complete. I was told they also bred in crannies 

 in rocks. From their appearance I should imagine their breed- 

 ing-season would not occur for some months. 



The young birds are often taken from the nests, but are 

 seldom reared, and when reared still more seldom live for any 

 length of time. The type example (Ibis, 1865, p. 331), which 

 lived for some two or three months in the aviary of Lady Barkly 

 at Mauritius, apparently died from a disease of the lungs, the 

 temperate climate of Reduit, 800 feet above the sea, probably 

 being too cold for it. 



The next bird which claimed my attention was the " Man- 

 geur da riz." I had heard of this species before, and expected 

 to find it a hard-billed bird. It proved to be new, and I have 

 described it as Foudia sechellarum* . All the examples I saw (and I 



* Foudia sechellakum. 

 F, fusco-brunnea, fronte, occipite et mento aui'eo tiuctis (vestituhieinali). 

 N. S. VOL. III. 2 B 



