2l6



quite a long time. This one never did. The reason may have

been that the hen went to nest again about a week before it

came out, and she is now sitting steadily on a third batch. In

the second batch there were three eggs—two clear and one

youngster. The young one is a hen.


When I went into the house and told what I had found,

neither Demosthenes, nor a Nationalist Member at a Cork

Election could have been listened to with more gratifying

attention.


Mr. Many-Colour is left in sole charge, but the youngster is

quite able to scrape for itself now, and is highly proud of itself

as the first Many-Colour ever born in the British isles. As I

look at her, I lift my hat reverently and whisper, Laudate. I feel

almost like Jeremy Taylor’s widow—that I may now almost sit

in a clean apron, and my hands folded, and my work done.


I hope my readers will all go and endeavour to follow my

good example. All that you require, as I saw in the Feathered

World last week, is a pair of Many-Colours, a small barrel on

end, a large garden aviary, and—that was all ! I fancy my

readers will say there is something else.


As I have seen several sneering remarks of late that my

success is due to my immense aviaries, I should like to say that

I have none. The aviary in which the Many-Colours bred is

about six feet square.


I have just (July ist) been looking at the young Many-

Colour. She is about three quarters of the size of the parents.

Beak, flesh colour ; eye, black ; the red mark on the head very

faint and indistinct at present; the breast, pale mauvish green,

verging into yellow green below ; the breast crossed with tiny

lines; flights, dark blue; the shoulder has the pale red patch ;

under tail blue. This is only a rough description, as it is difficult

to describe shades of colour in words.



THE ST. HELENA SEED-EATER.


(,Serimis flavivcjitris').


By W. Geo. Creswele, M.D.


With all my love of birds it has unfortunately happened

that I have never had access to good or rather to full books on my

favourite hobby, and that, therefore, much that I know has had to

be ground up, by slow degrees, so to speak, from a mixture of

practical knowledge and stray bits of information. The hope,

therefore, that I may be of some help to those situated like



