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position. It was placed in the thatch of a grass-built hut, just below the

edge of the roof and close to the door, the hut being occupied by some

Chinamen. It was firmly wedged in, the entrance being scarcely visible,

and contained three eggs in a very advanced stage of incubation. Though

by far the greater number of these finches build in this district in the pand-

anus palms, I have often found their nests in growing sugar-cane, wedged

in amongst the dead ‘trash’ which adheres to the stalk. Both the Crimson

Finch and the Chestnut-breast [Munia castaneithorux) are at present breeding

plentifully, and appear to do so all the year round.”


Dr. W. T. Greene has kindly sent us the following account of the

adventures of a young Cuckoo, which he has received from a correspon¬

dent : “Two little Redstarts had built their nest on one of the stone pillars

that support the balcony in front of the dairy. We were amazed at their

folly, wondering how they expected to get their babies fledged without


Brian (one of the cats) eating them. One day M - was greatly


distressed at seeing Tabs (another cat) walking up the stairs with a dead


naked bird in her mouth. M - took it from her, but evidently Tabs


had not killed it, for it was quite cold, and M - had seen her go down


the stairs and come back immediately with the bird. In a minute or two

Tabs went back and looked about on the ground round the pillar, so that

seemed to show she had found the young bird on the ground. We thought

the parents had somehow made it fall out of the nest in fright at the cats,

or something of that sort, and we thought no more about it until Sunday,


July 6tli, when M - called me to come and see something extraordinary.


I went, and there was a creature that looked more like an Egyptian god

than anything else, rising slowly up and down in the nest — like a Jack-in-

the-box, only slowly. I got a chair and looked nearer at it. It was unmis¬

takably a young Cuckoo. Well, that bird has kept us waiting on him until

yesterday. On Wednesday, when the great storm was, the water was

coming into his nest, so we put a cage up near it, covered over with water¬

proof paper and a little board, and put the Cuckoo in that with the door


open. His foster-parents were very good and fed him there. But INI - ,


having read that foster parents often die from starvation, not being able to

feed their foster-child and themselves, made me help them by catching

grasshoppers for the Cuckoo.


He got quite used to me, and M— -- was meaning to write and ask


D - if one could keep a Cuckoo in a cage. Yesterday, the maid woke


M- and me up with the news that the Cuckoo was on the ground.


We ran down and I watched him while M - prepared a larger cage,


having its door some way up the side. We hoped he would stay a bit in

this new cage, for he seemed very weak and not able to fly. He had

managed to get into a sweetbriar bush, and seemed quite relieved when I

took him out. He sat on my hand and talked, and was quite pleased with

his new cage. He sat in it for some hours, attending to his wing and tail

feathers, and eating with equal pleasure the flies and things that I or his

foster mother brought him. But between n and 12 o’clock, when we were


sitting 011 the lawn with M - and M - , I -came running to


tell us the Cuckoo was on the ground again. We fled down and found him

in a rose bush. Again he seemed pleased to be caught, and I put him back

in the cage and shut the door. I hoped the Redstart would feed him

through the bars, but she would not, the bars seemed to be too close



