138 J. Lewis Bonhote — Buff-backed Herons



Mr. Galloway, of Caversham, sent me a pair of Long-tailed Titmice—

“ Mumruffle ” is their name in Herefordshire. One rejoices to find

that this delicious species was not entirely exterminated in that awful

winter of 1916-17, but it was touch and go for the Long-tailed

Titmice and the Golden-crested Wrens.


This miserable summer of rain and chilly winds has not been

conducive towards an increase of young birds in outdoor aviaries, at

any rate not in mine. The Queen Alexandra Parrakeets had one

brood, three young being found dead in the nesting-box, when nearly

fully feathered, after a very chilly night in June. I suppose the parent

bird had ceased to cover them. Their crops, however, were full of food.

Since then the old birds have not attempted to nest again, which in

a warm summer they would have done.



BUFF-BACKED HERONS


By J. Lewis Bonhote, M.A.


The new Plumage Bill now before Parliament has brought the

question of the farming of Egrets for their plumes 1 to the fore—the

trade stating that plumes from India come from farmed birds, while

other letters have appeared in the daily Press stating that the farms

do not exist. This last statement has, however, been definitely settled

by Dr. C. B. Ticehurst (Bull. B.O.C., vol. xl, 1920, p. 152), who gives

full particulars of these farms as run in India. It may therefore be of

interest to readers of the Magazine to have a few avicultural notes

on Buff-backed Herons in captivity in Egypt 2


Some fifteen or twenty years ago the Cattle or Buff-backed Egret

was one of the most familiar birds in the landscape of Egypt, where

they were to be seen following the plough or standing about on freshly

irrigated land, but by 1908 they had practically all been wiped out by

plume-hunters, who shot them down at their breeding colonies, and in

1912, when by the instrumentality of the late Lord Kitchener a law



1 See Bonhote, A vie. Mag., Ser. Ill, Vol. IV, 1912, p. 61.



2 Full details have been giten in Report of Zoological Service for years

1914-18, p. 79 (1920). To be obtained from Government Press, Cairo, price 3s.



