soon as they see me bringing a new supply of millet they chirp

something which sounds very much like “ be quick.”


The males soon began to sing, and their efforts at voice

production are very funny. An apparently great effort produces

but a very faint twitter, and I am inclined to call them feathered

ventriloquists.


I offered my birds a bath but they would not use it at first.

It was absolutely necessary to teach them to take a bath. To do

this I took a vaporiser, such as is used in sick rooms to produce

a fine spray of Eau de Cologne. This little machine I filled with

tepid water, approached the cage slowly and sent a gentle spray

of wet on the birds’ backs. They evidently liked the sensation,

shook their feathers, hopped from perch to perch, and gradually

descended to the bottom of the cage. I followed their move¬

ments with my gentle minute stream of water directed to their

backs, without ever frightening them. I continued this until

they jumped on the rim of their bath, took a drink, and then

jumped bodily into the bath. When they had once enjoyed the

delight of a bath it required no further persuasion or teaching.

They soon went into their little tub one after the other and

sometimes two at a time. But they are very particular that the

water is quite fresh and clean. Water which has been in the

cage for some hours and has become slightly fouled they will

not bathe in.


I believe however that most of the Gouldiau Finches will

naturally bathe without any persuasion, and the original objec¬

tion of my birds to wash was only an individual peculiarity, or

perhaps partly due to my habit of putting a handful of clean

sand into the bath of my birds. This gives the birds a little

foothold ; and as they splash in the water particles of sand get

into the feathers, which has a twofold advantage, it makes the

birds shake themselves thoroughly afterwards, and the fine grains

of sand act on the feathers something like a currycomb does on

the coat of a horse. It has a distinct beneficial effect on the

beauty of a bird’s plumage. Watching the sparrows in the

street who prefer a puddle to bathe in has taught me to try the

experiment. A Eondon sparrow knows what he is about, even

when he takes a bath in what looks like dirty water.


The plumage of my Gouldians was soon in a beautiful

state of perfection.


I next procured two husks of cocoa-nuts from a bird

dealer, such as are used for breeding Australian Budgerigars. I

fixed a husk on each side of the cage, removing one wire so



