288



Correspondence.



CORRESPONDENCE.



DEATH OF OLD FRIENDS.


On May 23rd my old hangnest (Icterus vulgaris), purchased early in 1899,

died. The cold of last winter affected many of my birds and destroyed many

flowers, as I was unable to obtain any cote for the last month or two of the snowy

weather. The hangnest had been ailing for about two months, being unable to fly

up to his perch ; but he always welcomed me with the usual sounds of clucking,

followed by a rattling b-r-r-r-r. He was not a young bird when I bought him, as

the scales on the tarsi showed, and to have kept him in a flight cage for eighteen

years is not bad I think.


On June 3rd my last remaining cock Napoleon weaver went the way of all

flesh ; he had been out of sorts for about a week. He had been in summer plumage

all the winter, but at the beginning of May began to moult into the winter plumage,

which he had partly assumed when he died. I sent him to the Natural History

Museum, as the plumage seemed to me interesting and worth preservation. I

believe this is a bird which I purchased in 1900; two or three purchased in 1907

were, I am pretty certain, placed in another aviary, where they eventually died. I

still have two females. One, I think, may be P. franciscana, but I should have to

catch it to be sure ; it is rapidiy turning black through vigorous old age.


A. G. Butler.



WHYDAHS.


Sir, —I was greatly interested in Mr. Shore-Baily’s article on the whvdahs

in the ‘ Avicultural Magazine’ for March, 1917, especially so as I have all the

whydahs mentioned, or at least their East African representatives, in my aviaries

out here.


There are other whydahs in this country which Mr. Baily ought to try and

obtain, such as Pyromelana xahthomelana, the yellow-rumped whydah, Penthetria

eques, the white-winged whydah, P. hartlaubi, Coliuspasser concolor, and C. dela-

merei, etc., all of which are easily caught and travel well.


These birds have nested in my runs, but owing to overcrowding have not

been able to incubate or rear their young.


On p. 132 Mr. Baily states that Mrs. Annington succeeded in breeding the

pintail whydah, V. principalis. This is interesting, for in this country V. princi¬

palis is parasitic—that is, the female lays her eggs in other finches’ nests, either one

or two eggs in the nest of each host. I have never come across more than two eggs.

The eggs are pure white when blown. The most common bird to be victimised is

the small waxbill, Estrilda estrilda 7iiassaica, but I have also taken the eggs or

young from the nests of E. paludicolor, E. dclamcrei, E. rliodopyga, and from the

small fire-finch, Lagonosticta ruberrima. At this very moment there are two young

Pintails being fed just outside my aviaries by a pair of waxbills. In my aviaries

these birds have deposited their eggs in a nest of the African sparrow, Passer rufo-

cinctus, but this is no doubt due to the fact that no other birds except the sparrow

and the pintails were nesting at the same time.



