Letters, Extracts, Notices, ^c. 075 



captivity until the night of July 26th, 1902, when, just as it 

 was completing its moult, it also died. 



My experience, and that of many other bird-keepers, with 

 regard to this species of Poeplnla, is that it is by no means 

 gifted with longevity : the greater number of imported 

 Gouldian Finches die in the first or second yeax of captivity. 

 For a specimen therefore to retain its health in one of my 

 flight-cages for six years seeins to me exceptional. 



However, the longevity of my Gouldian Finch was by no 

 means the. most interesting fact in connexion with it. What 

 astonished and interested me most was that from about its 

 third year (in my possession) its colouring deepened very 

 noticeably with each succeeding moult. Now, at its death, 

 it was so dissimilar from the normal P. gouldia that, if 

 shot wild, nobody would hesitate to regard it as a very 

 distinct species. The following is a description of the final 

 colouring : — 



Entire head, throat, and breast glossy blackish indigo or 

 blue-black ; a few feathers in the middle of the hind-breast 

 with blue fringes ; back of crown slightly olivaceous, grading 

 into the deep olive-green of the nape and back. Feathers 

 of hinder back with more or less broad grass-green borders ; 

 feathers of rump blue-black, fringed with peacock-green or 

 blue ; tail blue-black. The wings shew no marked difference 

 from the normal type, but the breast is dull ochreous rather 

 than bright saffron-yellow, and is disfigured by a vague 

 central longitudinal broad olive streak and by similar 

 flanking streaks. Between the blue-black breast and the 

 abdomen is a line of copper-reddish ; the vent is white. 

 Beak white, with tip and commissure claret-coloured ; irides 

 blackish ; feet pale huffish, toes pale pinkish flesh-coloured, 

 claws pale huffish. 



Among Thrushes and Skylarks which have lived long in 

 captivity melanochroism is not uncommon. I well remember 

 one Song-Thrush, the property of an old Irishman who used 

 to keep a bird-shop in Kcppel Street, Chelsea, which was 

 quite black. Its owner informed me that he had kept the 

 bird for sixteen years, ami although it had become quite a 

 cripple from old age, he had not the heart to kill it. He 



SER. VI II. — VOL. II. 2y 



