154 



j^ards. I suppose that the hen, when she found her 

 mate did not come to her, flew back to the town, 

 found him searching for his lost one, and managed to 

 convey to him what had happened. 



2)r. 1RU66 on tbc rarer Jfirefincbee. 



Translated with notes from Die fremdlandischen Stnbenvogel 

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

 {Co7itm2ied front page 98.) 

 The last Firefinch which Dr. Russ describes (also in the 

 Addenda) is particularly interesting to nie, as among a lot of 

 birds which I got this year in the upper part of the Gambia, 

 was one of the same kind, that is a Firefinch exactly like the 

 common bird, except that its plumage is a bright bronzy- 

 orange instead of red. This was his colour the day he was 

 caught, so that this abnormality cannot be due to the effects of 

 captivity, as I tliought might be the case when reading Dr. 

 Russ' account of his specimens. Now after two months cage- 

 life the orange has spread over nearly the whole plumage. Our 

 author, (as will be seen in his account which I give below), 

 considered his birds a distinct species, but personally I expect 

 that, like mine, they were merely abnormally coloured speci- 

 mens of Z. se?iegala. 



The BRONZE FIREFINCH (Russ, Die Fremdl. Stub. p. 668). 

 In the late autumn of 1873 among a large con- 

 signment of birds which I obtained from Charles 

 Jamrach of London, I found a little Astrild, which I 

 was unable to identify. It was so dirty and .so poorly 

 feathered that only the head and upper back were 

 available for diagnostic purposes, but in size, shape 

 and general behaviour it closel}^ resembled the Com- 

 mon Firefinch, while it also had a similar call-note 

 and the same habit of wagging its tail ; its colour 

 however was not crimson, but a reddish-orange or a 

 golden bronzy-brown. I kept it most carefully in a 



