1 8 2 Bird-keeping. 



feathers barred with black and white, giving the 

 appearance of large white spots. The male has a 

 bright chestnut patch on each ear, and a black streak 

 coming straight down from the eye, a white patch be- 

 tween this and the beak ; the throat and sides of the 

 chest are beautifully barred with dark grey and white, 

 with a broad black band across the chest ; the lower 

 part of the body is white, and the sides under the 

 wings chestnut-brown with white spots; feet and legs 

 orange. 



The hen is paler in colour on the back, and has 

 neither the chestnut on the ears, the barred throat and 

 black band of the cock, or the brown under the wings; 

 but she has the same black streak down from the 

 eye, and a dusky white patch between that and the 

 beak. They have a low harsh call-note, and the male 

 has a croaking kind of warble by way of a song; best 

 described as like a child's penny trumpet. They eat 

 canary and millet-seed. Captain Sturt speaks of these 

 birds as more numerous than any others in the in- 

 terior of Australia ; collecting in hundreds on bushes 

 never very far from water, to which they resort at 

 sunset. He says that he and his companions con- 

 sidered them as harbingers of good, as, when they 

 saw them, they knew that water was at hand. They 

 build in small trees, many nests in the same tree, and 

 hatch their young in December. 



A great deal of interest has been excited lately by 



