Correspondence, Notes, etc.



279



Surely ten months is ample time to observe the habits of any bird*, for

I notice Mr. Phillipps wrote an extremely long and interesting article on

birds he had for only seven.


There must be some other reason for this prolonged moult, but

suggestions like those advanced bv Mr. Phillipps do not help us very much.


Perhaps Mr. St. Ouintin, who has had large experience of wading

birds, will give his opinion on the subject.


G. C. Porter.



PECTORAL FINCHES, &c.


Sir, — I have a pair of Pectoral Finches and can find nothing about

them in my books on birds. Will you kindly tell me if these finches are

to be trusted in an aviary with Gouldiaus and Waxbills? My two are wild

and do not look amiable so I still keep them in a cage.


Can you recommend me any book on foreign finches ? I have Dr.

Butler’s Foreign Bird Keeping. (Mrs.) R. S. Vivian.


The following reply has been forwarded to Jl/rs. Vivian :


Pectoral Finches are not common birds in this country, and I think I

am right in stating that, only during the last year or so, has a pair been

exhibited at the great Crystal Palace Bird .Show.


The late Mr. Erslcine AII011 had a pair of Pectoral Finches among the

three hundred birds associated in his bird-room, and he does not mention

them among those which he found treacherous towards their associates

(see Avic. Mag., Vol. III., p. 125).


Of the Chestnut-breasted Finch, which is certainly related to the

Pectoral Finch, I had, at various times, eight examples living amicably

with Waxbills and many other small finches in one of my aviaries; so that

I should net anticipate mischief from M. pectoralis.


You can obtain a copy of the second edition of my “ Foreign Finches

in Captivity,” through our publisher, I think at about a fifth of the cost of

the original hand-coloured edition : of course the plates, being reproduced

in chromo-lithography, are not anything like so perfect in colouring as the

4to volume; but the text is a little more up to date, having been revised

two or three years later. A. G. BuTEER.



* Not necessarily, especially when that period does not include the nesting' season,

nor the birds with full wings. A little difference in the state of health, age, length and

condition of captivity, a number of little things affect individual birds as they do human

beings. For instance, at the present moment I have here two male I.ong-tailed Whvdahs,

the one in summer the other in winter plumage. East summer the one was in my aviary

the other elsewhere, with the result that they are assuming their wedding plumes at

different seasons. Another Member, with beautiful aviaries, complains that her specimens

failed altogether to don their wedding dresses last year, and have not done so up to the

present time (May 7). I am under the impression that all of these birds were brought

over from South Africa at the same time and by the same hand, and yet they now differ

widely.—R.P.



