Correspondence.



97



bird was in sight, either in the casuarinas by the creek or actually in the old

mulberry tree above the bower, and I dare not either alter the shutter or rise

and stretch my legs. Luckily, I had gathered a supply of mulberries and had a

pocketful of biscuits, so I managed to put in the day with only the inconvenience

of a little stiffness. The last day (on which I stayed simply as a last hope of

securing a picture) I made more of a shelter for myself, both to guard against

the sun and to hide me from all sides, for inquisitive rosellas (which came to

feed on the dead thistles round the bower) and leatherheads and numbers of

Strepera used to peer at me from a distance of a few feet, and I fancied that

they somehow alarmed the Satin-bird, for he used to investigate on all sides

before coming into the mulberry tree, although the two females with him were

far more trusting ; but I never saw them take the slightest interest in the bower.

There were many opportunities on the third day, but I only managed to expose

three plates, as, after each exposure, I had to let the bird leave the bower,

naturally, and it would be hours sometimes before he again got in focus. My

great regret was that I had no cinematograph, as there were times when the

bird was playing round the bower, rearranging feathers, etc., for as long as

five minutes at a stretch.”


AN AGED DIAMOND DOVE.


This morning I discovered to my disgust that my sole remaining Diamond

dove had disappeared from my birdroom : it must have got through a hole in the

wire-netting close to the floor, made its way into the conservatory and escaped

through the top light which has been left open on one or two warm nights

lately. Speaking of this bird in the Magazine for October 1913, I say—“ Male

still living after over nine years,” but I evidently confounded it with a bird

purchased in 1903 which (as recorded in my “ Foreign Birds ”) died in 1907, so

that I was left with only the male of my original pair of more vigorous birds

purchased in 1S96 ; it is this bird which has now got away after being nineteen

years in my possession, a pretty good record for even so long-lived a bird as a

dove : I expect it is dead now from want of food and cold.


12th Dec., 1915. A. G. BUTLER.


TWO CIVILIZED SANDHILL CRANES.


From “Bird-Lore” we cull the following account (by Minna Moore

Willson):—“Betty and Dixie are two pet Sandhill cranes that have lived

happily on the large lawn of our home at Kissimmee, Florida, even since they

were downy youngsters fresh from the Everglades.


Economically they have few rivals, for, with their never-ending appetites

and great capacity for food, they dig from the first streak of dawn to the falling

of the evening shadows. Worms, bugs, larvte, and grasshoppers, all disappear

rapidly down their long necks. They will eat readily from the hand.


Our pets, now being advanced somewhat in the scale of civilization, have



