The Meadow-Pipit. 199 



aviary : I found it perfectly harmless and amiable towards the other inhabitants of 

 the aviary, until other specinens of its species were associated with it ; and, having 

 no mate of its own, it took a great fancy to a Hedge-Si)arrow, but the latter had 

 already made up to a Garden- Warbler : I recorded this in the "Zoologist" for 

 Jul}', 1889, as follows: — "I frequently noticed my Hedge-Sparrow following the 

 Garden-Warbler about, and trj'ing to entice him to pair with her ; on one occasion 

 I noticed her behaving in a similar manner towards the Pied- Wagtail, but both 

 birds treated her with the utmost indifference ; the Meadow-Pipit, however, strutted 

 about in the greatest excitement, and tried in ever}^ way to make up to her, though 

 she constantly gave a peck whenever he advanced near to her." 



In November, 1889, nine Meadow-Pipits were brought to me by a bird-catcher, 

 who sold them to me at 2d. apiece ; they were all freshl}' netted and very wild. 

 I turned the whole of these birds out with that received the previous year, and 

 hoped that I should have the pleasure of hearing some of them sing in 1890; but 

 first the Hedge-Sparrow attacked and killed several of them, and then they began 

 quarrelling among themselves, fighting like little Game-cocks whenever they met, 

 so that by December only two remained alive, and even one of these succumbed 

 to its injuries before the end of the year, leaving a solitary hen.* 



To look at these elegant little birds one would never imagine that they could 

 exhibit evil passions ; but my experience clearly demonstrates the danger of 

 attempting to keep more than one male in an enclosure. The female which re- 

 mained and was so sprightly a bird, that for some mouths I imagined her to be 

 a male, eventuall}' proved her sex b}' laying an egg in a nest built by a Canary 

 in one of the bushes, about two feet from the ground : it was an odd place for a 

 Tit-Lark to lay in, but perhaps not so remarkable as the fact that a Canary, turned 

 loose into an aviary, and having no model to guide her, should have reverted to 

 the ancient nest of her species which her ancestors, probabl}^ for hundreds of years, 

 had never seen. I am led to make these observations, because Charles Dixon in 

 his "Jottings about Birds," pp. 235-239, is so indignant with those who insist 

 that the architectural power of birds is instinctive. To my mind it is infinitely 

 more difficult to believe that besotted looking sleepy fledglings should be capable 

 of appreciating the intricacies of the nests which they are leaving, and should be 

 able so to fix them in their memories, as (a 3'ear afterwards) to be in a position 

 to reproduce them ; than that the art should be instinctive. Mr. Dixon has indeed 



• This true relation of what occurred in one of my aviaries has been stigmatized as slanderous, and it has 

 been suggested that the aviarj- contained a ''Happy family" collection of vicious Parrakeets, i\:c. ; but I have 

 had far too much experience to play such pranks: on the contrary my Waxbill aviary was the one selected; 

 it is 16 feet long and therefore there was not even the excuse of crowding to account for the vicious behaviour 

 of the Pipits. 



D3 



