9S Correspondence. 



made tlieir way through the cement of the wall and carried oft" 

 one of the Pekins. Fortunately this was soon discovered, and the 

 other birds caught and caged. Since then the wall has been covered 

 with wire-netting, and the birds put out again. Being so ner.r 

 the trees the aviary is well provided with insects in summer. In 

 September the Waxbills seemed to be feeling the cold so much that 

 they were brought into the house. It was not until after this that 

 I discovered that both pairs had built nests in the aviary — the Ava- 

 davates in a nest basket in the shelter, the Orange-cheeks in a 

 whin branch outside. After discovering thc^ nests, the Orange - 

 cheeks were caged separately, and provided with a basket nest 

 and some dry grass. They were soon busy with these, l)oth birds 

 building. The hen laid five eggs, and then for two days my hopes 

 rose high, for they sat fairly steadily, or at any rate the' hen did 

 so — the cock was rather fussy, and could not b:'ar anyone near the 

 cage when he was in charge. At night the hen sat, the cock 

 keeping guard just outside. After those two days all my hopes were 

 quenched, for it seemed to have been too much for the hen, she 

 became puffy and listless, and would take no more notice of the 

 nest. 



Since the Waxbills were taken out of the aviaiy I Jiave 

 put in a family of four young Saffron Finches, and iatei', their 

 mother, as she would try to nest outside inHhe cold weather. The 

 noise the young Saffrons made wh mi the old bird was jnit in with 

 them was exactly like the scolding of House Sparrows when they are 

 mobbing another bird, and they peeked her most unmercifully. How- 

 ever, the old bird soon put h?r children in their place. Two of 

 the young birds appear to be ratlier darker than the others — is 

 this likely to be any indication of their sex? They are about five 

 months old. 



[ should be much interested to know if other members have 

 found the Spieebird to be a good foster-mother? In the summer 

 of 1909 I had in my aviary a solitary hen Spieebird, which had 

 made attempts to nest on several occasions. I had several Zebra 

 Finches in the same aviary. One of the Zebra Finches nested in 

 a ooco-nu*. husk, but when the young ones were only about a week 

 old the hen Zebra died. Her place was taken by the Spieebird, 

 which 3'eared the young ones most .successfully, the cock Zel)ra 

 Finch never taking the smallest notice of them. 



(Miss) E. MAR.IOEIE HTXCKS. 



MY PET BIRDS AND HOW I KEEP THEM 



Sir. — A few notes of my avian pets and how I keep them 

 may interest readers of " Bird Notes." My pets are 20 in number, 

 both British and Foreign species, as follows: — 



4 Bullfinches. 



1 Gcldflnch. 



1 pair Blue Tits. 



