Co?'responde?ice, Notes, etc.



281



NIGHTINGALES, PASSERINE PARRAKEETS, &c.


Sir, — I have kept more than one Nightingale through the Winter in

sheltered but open and unheated aviary, and have a hen bird at present

that was put out on 28th February, 1900, and is perfectly healthy at present.

I have never been able to get a cock bird, or at any rate one that would

sing.


Is it not rather hypercritical to complain of a Passerine Parrakeet

being called a Love-bird (p. 243) ? See Miss Hawke’s enquiry on p. 245. I

conceive that 99 people out of 100 would speak of any of the small species,

were it red faced, or white-headed, or blue-winged, or even the Budgerigar,

as a Love-bird. It may not be scientific, but it is at least more generally'

intelligible than the names which the scientific classifier uses.


I thank Miss Alderson for her information about the colour of her

young Lavender-finch. I am still at a loss as to the identity of my bird, its

beak being entirely unlike that of a Lavender-finch. It is large for the size

of the bird, and similar in shape to that of a Chaffinch, rather a formidable

vicious looking black beak. The bird is about the size of a Silverbill, but

shorter and dumpier in its build, and has no light colour about it, only a

dark, dingy blue gray body with red wings and tail. The dealer entered

him in the invoice as “ Hybrid,” and was evidently unaware what it really

was.


Cordon Bteus. The cock bird is clearly the culprit and accountable

for his wife’s baldness. I have placed him in solitary confinement.


Chas. L. Rothkra.


[The Passerine Parrakeet, although superficially resembling the

Love-birds (Agapornis) , is geuerieally perfectly distinct, and we do not see

that it is hypercritical to point this out.


Mr. Rothera’s description of the bird he cannot identify appears to

correspond with that of the Aurora Finch, Pytelia phoenicoptera. — Ed.]



THE LITTLE OWL.


Sir,—C ould you identify the accompanying bird ? There were a pair

about here for several weeks, but a youth threw at this one and broke its

wing. I was very' vexed.


Belton, Uppingham, May nth. F. H. Rudkin.


The follozumg reply teas sent to Mr. Rudkin.


The bird was a male of the Common Little-Owl, Carine noctua, or

Athene noctua, as lovers of the Classics delight to call it, for it is the Owl

which was sacred to Pallas Athene. It is a common species in most of the



