Breeding of the Painted Finch. 63


Eiders looked tucked up and miserable, and one died of

pneumonia. O11 the other hand, though I cannot speak from

experience of other young sea-ducks, young Eiders must be

carefully protected from the direct rays of a scorching sun, or

they will certainly succumb to what appears to be heat apoplexy

and that quickly. We are now after sad experience, always ready,,

if a day threatens to be hot, to thrust into the ground plenty of

leafy boughs to make a shady shelter, which the Eider ducklings

quickly take advantage of.


I should like here to call the attention of those who keep

ducks to the necessity of keeping them supplied with grit and

coarse sand. My eyes were first opened to the fact that ducks,

even of tender age, require this aid to digestion, when I was staying

with a friend who was at the time rearing large quantities of

so-called wild ducks. The ducklings visited the heaps of cinders

that were left, as the cooking stoves which prepare their maize

meal were shifted about; and it was noticed how quickly this not

very promising substitute for grit and sand was consumed. I now

supply flint and quartz grit to my ducks, as well as land-birds,

and I find the best way, and the most economical, to give it is in

large bowls or weighted wooden boxes sunk beneath the surface

of the water. In some soils this, of course, is not necessary, but

where the ponds are muddy and the surrounding ground deficient

in gravel or sand, I am sure it is of great advantage and tends to

keep the birds in health.



BREEDING OF THE PAINTED FINCH.


Emblema picta.


Cat. Birds Brit. Mus. XIII., p. 295.


By Reginald Phillipps.


Those who write about birds and pose as our teachers

and masters have, as far as I know of their productions, always

given us to understand that this is a rare species ; so it came as

a shock to many of us last February when it was announced that

some sixty pairs had reached the Port of Eon don. The explana¬

tion given to me was that, hitherto, they had been accounted rare

because people had not gone far enough to meet with them, but



