2 2 o Bird-keeping. 



about like a humble-bee, driving all the other birds out 

 of his way. 



The CAPE GROSBEAK or YELLOW- SHOULDERED 

 BISHOP BIRD (Euplectes or Ploceus Capensis) is a larger 

 bird, velvety black throughout, excepting a band of 

 bright yellow across the middle of the back, and a 

 patch of the same colour on the shoulders. 



All these birds require insect food, mealworms, ants' 

 eggs, and the like, or egg food, in addition to their 

 canary and millet-seed, and most of them like berries 

 and fruit. 



Another gorgeously plumaged bird is the MADA- 

 GASCAR GROSBEAK (Euplectes ruber or Ploceus Mada- 

 gascaricnsis). A specimen shown to me in its common 

 dress had a variegated plumage of red, yellow, brown, 

 and green. I saw it again in its full plumage, and it 

 was then of a beautiful glossy crimson (deep carmine- 

 colour) throughout the head, neck, breast, upper tail- 

 coverts, and half-way down the sides of the body : the 

 tail and wings brownish-black, the quills just edged 

 with yellow; the lower part of the body from the 

 breast to the point of the tail of a sepia brown ; the 

 legs and feet were also brown ; the beak was thick and 

 conical, with a deep notch near the base in the upper 

 mandible. This structure of beak would make one 

 suppose that the bird in its native state must feed upon 

 hard seeds or nuts and insects, perhaps beetles with 

 hard cases. In confinement it lives chiefly on canary 



