' 91 



without substituting inference for fact, but with a 

 plain statement of the evidence, we should now possess 

 a fund of information on the subject of animal intelli- 

 gence on which we could draw with great advantage, 

 whilst as it is the information available is so blemished 

 with these defects as to be almost valueless. 



3)r. 1Ru55 on the rarer Jfircftncbcs. 



Translated with notes from Die fremlandischen Stubenvogel 

 by Dr. E. Hopkinson, D.S.O., M.B. 



(Continued from page 79^. 

 THE DARK-RED FIREFINCH or SOUTH-AFRICAN 

 FIRE FINCH (L. rubricata) . 

 To their enthusiastic friends these little birds are 

 more a source of disappointment than of pleasure (i), 

 as they but seldom appear on the market, and then 

 only to rapidly disappear again like the illusive 

 Will-o'-the-wisp, dying in shoals and leaving us 

 nothing but sorrow at the death of such lovely birds, 

 and regret for the pecuniary loss their mortality has 

 caused us. Some time ago the dealers imported these 

 birds fairly frequently, and it is on such occasions 

 that we can point out with pleasure and pride that 

 Aviculture, and with it the accurate investigation of 

 Natural History, is not less advanced in Germany than 

 it is in other countries, and I am sure that the present 

 rareness of these birds in our shops is not due to 



(i) I have never kept this species, though in South Africa I have seen 

 them both wild and in captivity, (as cage-birds they seemed to be by no 

 means common), and friends of mine, who kept birds like the St. Helena 

 Waxbill with ease, told me that these birds generally died when caged, so 

 that this seems to show that, even in their native country, they are delicate 

 and difficult to accustom to life in confinement, and one cannot be surprised 

 at the mortality among them when imported. 



