138 



FOREIGN BIRDS FOR CAGE AND AVIARY. 



like the back, and the rump and upper tail-covertB 

 pale broivn; greater wing-coverts block externally, 

 bron-n edjjed, and yellow towards the base; flights 

 black edged with brown, and, with the exception of 

 the inner secondaries, yellow at base; tail with more 

 restricted j-cllow basal area; face alki.gether browner 

 than in male; throat ashy broivn ; fore-neck, breast, 

 sides and flanks chocolate, "with a yellow tinge ; centre 

 of abdomen and thiglis whitish ; under tail-coverts 

 preyer and tinged with yellow ; wings below as in male 

 Hab., " Kastein Siberia, Japan and China." (Sharpe.) 



Seebohm gives no informition respecting the wild 

 life of this bird in his " Birds of the Japanese 

 Empire. 



F. W. Styan {The Ibis, 1891, p. 353) says:—" This 

 bird breeds at Kiukiang, where I have obtained voung 

 and old birds m June. Most of them, however, leave in 

 April and return in the autumn. In winter they are 

 found iji flocks aJl over the hills up to 2,000 feet but 

 avoid the plains. A good songster." 



Frank Finn {The Ibis, 1901. p. 435) speaks of this 

 species as the commonest Finch, with the exception of 

 the Canary, kept as a, cage-bird in CalcutU. 



Captain H. A. Walton, writing on the birds of 

 Peking (T-Ae Ibis, 1903, p. 27), says:— "This species 

 occurred m large flocks in the Temple of Heaven 

 Park for a few days at the end of January. They 

 were very wild, a-nd kept to the tops of the trees." 



Messrs. La Touche and Rickett, describing the nest- 

 ing of birds in Fohkien (T/ie Ibu, 1905, p. 44), give the 

 followmg account :— '• A common resident in the plains 

 Breeding begins in April, when several nests are ofteJi 

 to be found in the same grove. They are usually 

 placed in a pme tree, near the extremity of a branch ; 

 we, however, obtained one in a fruit tree, built in the 

 angle formed by a branch with the trunk, and another 

 in Uickett s garden was placed in a similar position in 

 a Grevillia {GreviUia robusla). 



" The nest is always well concealed, and is a beautiful 

 compact httle cup, with very thick sides. It is com- 

 posed of 6ne twigs, mess, dry grass, pine-needles, roots, 

 fibres, vegetable down, and feathers, lined with very 

 fine dry grass, roots, liair, or feathers. One brought 

 to Rickett was lined with the short curly chestnut and 

 black tail feathers of a domestic cock. Tliese curved 

 over the egg cavity, and at first glance gave the nest 

 the appearance of a domed structure. The measure- 

 ments are : external diameter, about 4 inches, internal 

 diameter, 2^, outer depth, 2^, depth of cup, l'^. 



The eggs are from two to four in a clutch. In shape 

 they are more or less ovate. The ground-colour, when 

 fresh, is a light opalescent green, with a few specks 

 or comma-like markings of black and red of various 

 shades. There are occasionally some pale reddish grey 

 underlying marks. 



" Seven eggs in Rickett's collection average .73 by 

 .54 in. Two in La Touche's are much larger, viz., 

 .77 by 56 and .82 bv .52." 



I well remember when this species was first exhibited 

 at the Crystal Palace that several of the visitors took 

 it for a hybrid between the European Goldfinch and 

 Greenfinch. Later, I believe, the keeper Travers at 

 the Zoological Gardens at Regent's Park, cros.sed the 

 Chinese Greenfinch with the European Goldfinch, and 

 subsequently produced hybrids between the young and 

 the European Greenfinch ; or possibly the two Green- 

 finches started this combination of three species ; any- 

 how, the first Mules produced were fertile. 



Black-ta:led Hawfinch {Eophona melanura). 



Above dull pale chocolate, paler and more ashy on the 

 rump, and whitish close to upper tail-coverts"; lesser 



wing-coverts dark brown ; remainder of wing-feathers 

 black, glossed with steel blue on coverts and secon- 

 daries ; tips of primary-coverts and secondaries, ami 

 primaries broadly, at the extremities white; upper tail- 

 coverts :tnd tail bhick glossed with steel blue; head all 

 round black, a diffused ashy belt immediately behind 

 the black ; throat and breast tawny brownish, the 

 latter ashy in the centre like the rump ; sides and 

 flanks deep tawny ; centre of abdomen and under tail- 

 coverts white ; thighs brownish-ashy ; axillaries and 

 under wing-coverts black, narrowly tipped with white ; 

 flights below dusky blackish, with ashy inner edges ; 

 beak yellow, the base, tomium and tip purplish shaded 

 with green ; feet fleshy white ; irides reddish brown. 

 Female paler, the head drab brown, dark grey on the 

 crown ; the wing-coverts brown like the back of the 

 neck, the greater series black at tips ; primary coverts 

 and bastard wing dark brown, the former blackish 

 and broadly tipped with white ; flights black, the 

 secondaries glo.ssed with steel blue; the innermost 

 brown, edged with black and fringed with white, re- 

 maining secondaries edged with white at the ends and 

 the primaries for some distance up the outer web ; 

 throiit and breast drab brown, like the head ; the re- 

 maining under parts like the male, but paler; beak 

 only lightly suffused with purple at the tips. Hab., 

 Southern and Central China, ranging in summer to 

 North China and E. Siberia, possibly to Japan. 



Bartlett (" Monogr. Finches and Weavers ") quotes 

 Consul Swinhoe for the following facts : — " Found it on 

 the Amoy in winter," " leaves before summer. Breeds 

 in Shanghai. Very abundant about Canton ; evi- 

 dently breeds there in great numbers. I have nol 

 traced it further north ; also procured on the Woosung 

 River near Shanghai ; at Foochow." 



In David and Oustalet's " Birds of China " it is 

 said to be " very common at all seasons in Southern 

 and Central China, and advances in summer in little 

 flocks as far as the northern provinces ; every year they 

 catch some of these birds in the environs of Pekin. 

 which the Chinese of the capital designate by the name 

 of Hon-cuU, and M. Dybowski has sent to the Warsaw 

 Museum an individual of the same species taken in the 

 environs of Alock Bay in Eastern Siberia." 



Mr. F. W. Styan, speaking of this species as observed 

 in the Lower Yangste Basin (7"** Ibi^, 1891, p. 353), 

 says that it is " a common resident, gregarious in 

 winter." 



Speaking of birds collected in Corea (7*^* Ibis, 1892, 

 p. 240). Mr. C. W. Campbell says: — "Two immature 

 males shot in July at Chemulpo. Rare " ; while in the 

 .same volume Mr. La- Touche observes that it occurs 

 at " Foochow and Swatow in winter and spring. It 

 is very abundant all over the country." 



In his "Field Notes on the Birds of Chinkiang" 

 {The Ibis. 1906, pp. 628-629). Mr. J. D. D. La Touche 

 says: — "It breeds in May and June, generally build- 

 ing in high, or, at least, medium-.sized trees, and, as 

 a rule, on a large horizontal bough at some distance 

 from the trunk. An empty nest seen on June 18 was 

 placed in the midst of a creeper in which the branch 

 was partially wrapi)ed up. This Hawfinch seems fond 

 of the company of other birds, often building on trees 

 where Blackbirds and Blue-winged Magpies have their 

 nests. 



" I obtained at Cljinkiang four nests with eggs. One. 

 containing two stale eggs, was brought to me on 

 June 14, 1903. On May 29 of the following year I 

 took two nests, one containing four eggs, nearly hard- 



