some firefinches and other Gambian birds.



115



I know of two good plates of this species, one in Yol. III. of

“ Bird Notes,” p. 117 ; the other in Shelley’s “Birds of Africa, ” Vol.

IV., pi. 32. Both depict the two sexes, and of the two I consider

the first the more accurate and much the happier in every way.


As a cage or aviary bird I have found the vinaceous firefinches

fairly hardy, that is, as compared with many of their relations, while

apart altogether from their rarity they have much to recommend

them as desirable additions to a collection. I have had some two

dozen at different times, all but one from the Gambia. There were,

I think, nine among the first lot of birds I ever brought home (1902)

from here, and since then I have brought two or three at a time in

different years, the last being a single cock, which I brought home

last July, one of the only pair I caught that season, both on the

same day at Lamin Koto, at the very spot where the 1902 birds

were obtained. The hen unfortunately escaped while being trans¬

ferred from trap to cage. During 1910-11 I must have had quite a

dozen, but that year, being prevented from coming home at my usual

time, I set free or gave away my birds, as I could not keep them an

extra twelve-month out here, or if I did attempt it, expect them to

remain in good condition and health all that time. The one non-

Gambian bird was a cock I bought for 2/- at Luer’s a good many

years ago out of a cageful of other Africans, one, which had some¬

how escaped the eagle eye of the Marseilles dealers, through whose

hands most of these birds pass, or at any rate used to. I occasion¬

ally see odd ones out here in the catchers’ cages and know of others

which have been picked up at home as mine w r as, and as Mr. Silver

in his interesting article in our November number (p. 35) tells us,

he has at different times obtained specimens of the spotted (or as he

preferred to call it, the bar-breasted) firefinch. This number has

only just reached me in Africa, long after my notes on the same

bird were faraway in the Editor’s hands ; otherwise for uniformity’s,

or at any rate the indexer’s sake, I might have used the same popular

name as he has.


While on the subject of names, I may mention that on the

few occasions on which I have known this species named in adver¬

tisements or elsewhere, it has usually been under the name ‘ Masked

firefinch,’ a title which would suit it well, but to which it should



