II 



^be Sorrows of ffiirSs* 



By Margarkt W11.T.IAMS. 



IN no cheerful spirit can most lovers of Gouldian 

 Finches review the past progress of their fancy 

 for these lovel}' birds. There is hardly a more 

 engaging, or more brightly beautiful little being 

 to be found than this, with the yolk-of-egg waistcoat, 

 the lilac-purple tippet, and cherry-red or velvet-black 

 toupet, and the wife a paler shadow of his own glory, 

 clothed in feather like a sunset flush. But all the ills 

 that beset other foreign cage birds seem to press 

 with extra severity upon the poor little Australian 

 Rainbow, and one or two he has, besides, all to him- 

 self. That cancerous growth about the beak that 

 Gouldian admirers know so well, and the terrible 

 egg-binding that besets the poor tiny hens— how fatal 

 and how frequent ! 



I speak with feeling, having just lost a hen that 

 had had several sets of eggs in safety, and now, after 

 nearly three years, is dead in the usual grievous way. 

 A large cage all to themselves, no crowding with other 

 birds, rock salt to peck, crushed egg shell, lawn grass 

 seed in mixture, white and spray millet, and canary 

 seed, kept the small couple in perfection of health 

 and plumage since the spring of 1900, but though the 

 hen laid eggs freely in their cocoanut husk, they 

 never hatched anything. 



Whether these small birds feel much or not, is a 

 question still undecided. Mentall}^ I think they do 

 not ; physically, I hope they do not. The whole soul 

 of the cock, in the case of my pair of Goulds, seemed 

 to be in the frequent nests his hen started. When, after 

 being absent to undergo treatment for her final illness, 

 she was returned to the cage, he showed no pleasure 

 at her return, but attacked her, scolding fiercely at her 

 dereliction of dut}-, and driving her to the cocoanut. 



