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building in the centre of the aviary amongst some Virginia

creeper stalks, about five feet from the ground, in just such a

place as au English Wren might select. On the following day

she was building steadily, and was then using only hay. Just

about the time, I ceased to feed the birds from that door, and have

not since seen the nest. The male was then coming into but was

not in full colour.


Probably many of our readers are unacquainted with this

species. Take a new physic-bottle cork ; into one end stick

one canary seed to represent the bill; on to the other end, at a

right angle, fix two inches from the top of a quill pen, pointing

straight upwards to the sky ; a tiny sprig of hay will do duty for

the feet. This is the female. Dip the canary seed into the ink

pot, adorn the head, neck, and front all round with the blackest

black and the bluest blue, mop up any drops that may have fallen

during the performance with a rag and wipe down the tail

therewith, and there you have the male when in colour. When

out of colour he is more or less like the female, but with a

blackish bill and darker tail. At least this is how my male was

when he arrived on May 26 with two females. Speaking with all

seriousness, this species, which has a long tail, is otherwise so

small that one of the females has, from the first day they were

turned into the garden, spent more time outside the aviary than

in it, passing freely to and fro through the tliree-fourths inch

mesh of the roof. She can also pass between the one-half inch

straight wire bars of a cage in the house.


This species is reputed to be polygamous. It would be

childish in the extreme if I were to make an assertion to the

contrary, considering that my experience is strictly limited to my

own birds. So far as my own three adults are concerned,

nevertheless, the evidence points directly to an opposite

conclusion. The two birds which constitute the pair have

always been dead against the odd female, and to their persecutions

and her loneliness I have attributed her uneasiness. She behaves

like a female who is in search of a mate, or at any rate of a

quiet home. Her plumage at this moment is so faultless that she

could not have been taking part in the work of incubation. I

feel inclined to suggest (of course it is only a suggestion) that the

males, owing to their brilliant plumage, are killed off, leaving a

large surplus of the soberly clad females, who follow each male

about in little flocks (four females to a male is supposed, I

believe, to be the outside limit) for the sake of companionship,

and are constrained to do so by a natural deep-rooted instinctive



