9



coloured, long and slender, as these birds live chiefly on the

ground, where the}’ move with great activity, taking long hops.


My birds are extremely tame and fearless, and also very

pugnacious, tilting and sparring at one another like game cocks,

so that in all probability one pair of Pittas in a wild state, would

demand a fairly large area to themselves for the purposes of

nesting.


A pair of Pittas were exhibited at the Crystal Palace Bird

Show a few years ago, which, if I remember rightly, were the

Hooded Pitta (P. cucullaiaj .


The Pittas known as Elliot’s, Gurney’s, Bornean, Neck-

laced, etc., are dreams of beauty, and make one’s mouth water to

possess them alive as pets, when looking on their coloured

portraits.



NOTE BY THE EDITOR.


Having undertaken to edit the Avicultural Magazine, may

I ask all our members to help me by sending something for

publication therein. We have not had much about British birds

lately, and I should be very glad if our members would record

the result of their observation of anything of interest concerning

our native species.


I should also be glad to receive accounts of the breeding

results of the past season in the aviaries of members.


Descriptions of members’ aviaries are always welcome and

I should like to receive photographs of birds with a view to

reproducing them in the Magazine.


May I ask all our members to help to make our Magazine

a still further success. D. Seth-Smith.



BIRD NOTES.



Some discussion has recently taken place in the daily Press as to the

damage wrought by birds on fruit. The remedies suggested are many and

various, but the concensus of opinion seems to be that the only adequate

means of protection to bush- and ground-fruit is to thoroughly net it over.

We have often been told that the birds eat the fruit because they require

moisture, and if dishes of water be placed about the garden the fruit will not

be touched. This theory is, however, exploded by a writer to the Standard,

who had most of his fruit taken by the birds although a stream of the

purest water ran through his garden.


Such fruit as pears and apples is most difficult to protect from

the ravages of Tits, who peck holes in it close to the stem, when the



