Correspondence, Notes, etc .



310



Two years ago I saw two genuine males in Mr. Hawkins’ shop,

(Bear Street, Leicester Square) immediately after a vain endeavour to select

some pairs in a dealer’s shop in East Loudon. There was a very great

difference between those two male birds and the large number of Pekin

Nightingales which I had seen an hour before; one realized then that one

had been looking at a lot of females. Mr. Hawkins at once admitted that

he had obtained those two males with difficulty, and that for some unknown

reason only females had for some time past arrived in the English market.


I have lately seen many Pekin Nightingales in bird-shops in Genoa

and Florence, where the males were predominant. I picked out two or

three genuine pairs with hardly any hesitation. I admit that if the birds

are not in good condition and plumage, it is much more difficult, or may I

say, less easy to do so; but all these birds were more or less in very fair

condition. The males are a much lighter olive green on the head, the dark

line running from the corners of the mouth is more pronounced (consider¬

ably more so), the yellow throat is much more brilliant, whilst the orange

of the fore neck extends farther and is much richer and deeper in colour.

If a male and female are put together in a cage, both in good plumage, I

believe that even people quite unused to them would pick out the sexes.

And then again the bill of the male is a brighter red than his mate’s.


To go into further comparisons, I may say that where, in the male

bird, the deeper sunset orange of the fore neck is sharply defined beneath

the yellow throat, in the female the paler yellow throat continues over the

foreueck and fades away into the dull olive coloured breast. In the female

also, the pale yellowish feathers (which in the male, sharply divide the olive

green of the head from the dark lines that run from the corners of the

mouth) are very much less definite and more washed out. When a pair of

Pekin Nightingales are seated side by side, the breast colouring in each

bird is most distinct.


Other details which can be detected but which are less evident, such

as a larger head and eye in the male, need not be so closely dwelt upon. Of

course I am speaking of adult birds.


What Dr. Butler writes as to the voice test in selecting a male and

female is ver\' true.


As a rule if a male bird is picked out from a number of others and

placed in a cage by himself, where he cannot see his companions, he will

very quickly begin calling and even singing.


The female merely chatters, whereas the call note of the male is far

more melodious. H. D. Asxr.iCY.



Sir, —In reply to Mr. Astle}', I frankly admit that the distinctions

which he points out (and which the late Mr. Abrahams relied upon) exist

between males and some females of the Pekin Nightingale : but, unhappily,



