FOR CAGES AND A VI ARIES. 65 



variety of vexatious accidents, they never succeeded in 

 rearing any young. 



The writer has also been assured by a gentleman, who 

 is certainly an authority on matters ornithological, that the 

 Brambling and Chaffinch had on one occasion to his 

 knowledge paired, and produced young in an aviary, and 

 that the young birds in question paired among themselves 

 in the following summer, built nests, laid eggs, and 

 actually became parents in their turn! But, while fully 

 recognising the knowledge and the absolute truthfulness 

 of the gentleman in question, the writer cannot but think 

 that a mistake has crept in somewhere, or that the 

 observer's memory is at fault, for if his contention were 

 quite accurate, how is it that the phenomenon has never 

 been repeated ? 



The Bullfinch. 



When all has been said and done, the Bullfinch is 

 the very nicest of birds, whether you watch him and his 

 sombre but neat-looking mate threading their way, at 

 no great distance from each other, through the leafless 

 boughs of the trees in mid-winter, in search of food, or 

 flitting from spray to spray among the hedgerows when 

 the days are broadening out and warming into spring, or 

 in a cage bowing and calling to the well-beloved one who 

 provides for all his little wants, and whom he rewards 

 for all attentions by the sweetest and most melodious 

 of notes. 



There are more brilliantly attired birds on the list of 

 the aviarist, of course, but is there a more harmoniously 

 vested one than he is .? Tender rosy-red, jet black, delicate 

 lavender grey, purest white and brilliant metallic blue, 

 are the colours in which he has been dressed by the hand 

 of Mother Nature herself, and difficult it would be to 

 match for simplicity and harmonious blending this combi- 

 nation of opposite hues. 



The hen Bullfinch is smaller than her mate, but is 

 fashioned on the same lines, though her colouring is 

 more modest, as becomes her sex (among birds), and 

 she is readily to be distinguished from him at a glance. 



