THE



Bvicultural /Hbagastnc,


BEING THE JOURNAL OF THE


AVICU LTURAL SOCIETY.



VOL. VII. —NO. 1 . All rights reserved. NOVEMBER, 1900 .



THE GOULDIAN FINCH.


By A. F. Wiener.


Some 20 years ago the inmates of my aviary used to vary

in numbers between 300 and 500, mostly foreign finches.


My great ambition then was to obtain some living speci¬

mens of Gould’s Aegintha picta, or painted Finch, of which I had

seen a drawing and read a description in Gould’s classical work

on the Birds of Australia.


The greatest disappointments I had during my experience

as a keeper of foreign finches were, that I never could find a

specimen of Gould’s painted Finch, and never meet with a copy

of Gould’s famous work at anything like a reasonable price.

Gould’s book on Australian Birds was not to be had at that

time for less than sixty or eighty guineas, which would have

made it a rather expensive addition to an amateur’s stock of

books of reference.


How very grateful we all should have been twenty-five

years ago if Dr. Butler’s spendid work on Foreign Finches had

then existed.


At that time bird-keeping taxed the pocket of amateurs

rather heavily. I remember being made to pay £10 for one of

the first pairs of Leiothrix luteus which reached this country,

whilst now the same pretty birds can be bought for a few shillings.


The search for Gould’s painted finch had however the

result that I came into possession of a good many rare finches

which I might have overlooked if a mild mania to find a specimen

of that Australian finch had not taken hold of me. To it I owe

that I bought one day from a sailor in the street, four little birds

which I thought might be young Gouldians imperfectly developed.

When I reached home and could examine them closely, I found

that they were something quite different, but further study

revealed that this primary mistake had put me by accident into

possession of quite a new species, which had until then been



