212 



side of the gape, and the two black bands on the 

 breast are very faint, in fact, when sitting puffed up 

 the}^ are hardly distinguishable. 



Since the young appeared the hen has laid four 

 more eggs — three in the nest and one on the hearth- 

 rug in the room — (I occasionally allowed the parents 

 to fly about during the da}'). 



I had failed to breed these birds before, in the 

 ordinar}' flight cages, and I believe my success on 

 this occasion is largely due to the method of con- 

 structing the cage, whereby the necessary attention 

 can be devoted from the back, without disturbing the 

 birds. 



nDigratiou an& Supcratition. 



By Geo. E. Weston. 



IN Birdland it is the time of the great autumn 

 migration, when the birds of the summer and 

 the sunshine wing their way to those Southern 

 climes where summer is perpetual, and the rays 

 of the sun lose not their warmth. 



The Swallows are going ; so, too, the Nightingale, 

 and all those feathered warblers which love the roses 

 and the glamour of the flowers. The only one to bear 

 with us the wretchedness of the winter time is that 

 universal favourite the Robin. Blessed with a courage 

 be3'ond his kind, he leaves the now deserted planta- 

 tions and ventures to our very doors. His familiar 

 strains, tinctured with melancholy and a hopeless 

 sadness, voice his regrets of those happier days — days 

 of slumbrous sunshine and of southern winds that 

 whispered drowsily through the trees. 



Every spring and every autumn, year in and year 

 out, witnesses the same phenomenon : the spring, the 

 flitting of the birds to those lands best suited to the 



