271



Correspondence.



Finch.” On November 5, I received an odd bird which, with only one pair

besides, had been exhibited at the L. & P. O. Show at the Aquarium on the

preceding da}’. The same pair, and that alone, appeared at the Palace

three mouths later. And two months afterwards, in April, 1898, I purchased

three more of these birds from a dealer. Five out of the six that I had

secured lived with me for a considerable time, and gave me opportunities

of making many notes. All of them, and all that I had then seen, were

orange-billed birds: all that I had seen were the same as my own : there¬

fore my six would seem to have been ordinary normal examples of Po'ephila

hecki, though not at that early day specialised and recognised as such.


Towards the close of the summer (1S9S), a good many more Long¬

tailed Grassfiuches reached this country; and by September they were being

advertised at 25/-the pair. I did not see these birds ; but I have a suspicion

that til is was the first arrival of the yellow-billed form—but I may be

wrong here.


As with several other species, I found that my Long-tailed Grass¬

fiuches, when transferred from a cage in a warm room to the open aviary,

lost the beautiful bloom from their plumage. Moreover, the colour of the

bill differed not only in different examples but, at certain seasons, in the

same individual, becoming (to quote my own notes) ‘‘deep red,” “red

orange,” “deep orange red” when in breeding condition, but often fading

into a dull orange, and occasionally into quite a light shade. And so it

followed that when it was bruited abroad, or perhaps at first only whispered

with bated breath, that there were two forms of the Long-tailed Grassfincli,

I, who had never seen a “ yellow-bill,” judged that the world was wrong,

and that the differences were no more than what I have hinted at above.


Rut my vanity was doomed to receive a cruel shock. I think it must

have been on the 5th October, 1S9S, that the blow fell, on the occasion of

my paying a visit to the “First Great Specialist Show” at the Crystal

Palace, when there were several pairs (or so-called pairs) on view —but all so

different prom those in my oivn aviary! Some species respond to the arts

and crafts of the exhibitor in a marvellous way—and my Longtails were

nowhere by comparison with them. And in some cases a tail grown in the

warm will “run away” from one grown in the garden aviary—and, com¬

pared with these exhibits, mine were but Short-tailed Grassfiuches. Their

bills, too, instead of being dull, or faded, or out-of-condition bills, were of a

bright, clear, almost aggressive yellow. And very reluctantly I was con¬

strained to come to the conclusion, either (r) That there are, in truth, two

distinct forms of the Long-tailed Grassfincli, or (2) That certain exhibitors

at the Palace are uncommonly clever artificers. Reginald Phillipps.


NESTING OF THE TREE CREEPER. (Certhia familiarisj.


Sir, —It will no doubt be of interest to members of the Avicultural

Society to know that I have a nest of four young Tree Creepers hatched on

Saturday and doing well. I believe this to be a record ? W. R. Temple.



