l.'iS 



FOREIGN BIRDS FOR CAGE AND AVIARY. 



throat bright scarlet ; lores dusky ; fore-neck golden 

 olive; chest yellowish, spotted -with -white at the ends 

 of the feathers, and barred subterminally "with black 

 and Avhite ; remainder of under 'Surface regularly barred 

 -with black and white, most distinctly on the sides ; 

 thighs ashy brown; lower abdomen and under tail- 

 coverts white, the latter buffish ; under wing-coverts 

 ashy -whitish, yellowish towards edge of -wing; flights 

 below ashy with paler inner edges ; beak crimson ; feet 

 pale brown ; irides red. Female duller and -with the 

 scarlet of the head replaced by ashy grey ; throat pale 

 ashy, faintly barred with white ; yellow wanting from 

 fore neck arid breast ; under surface less strongly barred 

 and spotted. Hab., Loango and the Congo into Da- 

 maraland on the -west, and eastward from Natal to the 

 Equator." Shelley. 



According to Shelley ("Birds of Africa," Vol. IV., 

 Part 1, pp. 274, 275)*: Mr. Monteiro met with it at 

 Loan-da, Katumbella, and Dombo, -where he found it 

 " called by the Portuguese ' Marachao,' and much 

 esteemed as a cage-bird on account of its marvellously 

 sweet song." Andersson writes : " This Finch is found 

 sparingly in Damara and Great Namaqualand, and 

 usually occurs in pairs ; its favourite resort is low bush 

 and old abandoned village fences, -whence the Damaras 

 call it the 'Kraal Bird.' Its food consists of insects." 

 They live generally in pairs in the thick bush near the 

 ground, and are not shy. 



"At the Zambesi Mr. Boyd Alexander found the 

 species locally distributed, the male sex predominating. 

 In Sept-ember the young were abroad. On one occasion, 

 September 8th, -we observed a pair of birds feeding four 

 young ones -perched in a row on a branch, and they 

 -were by no means shy, allowing of a close 1 approach." 



Captain Shelley describes the nest (p. 276) as " built 

 of dry grass, very roughly put together, with no extra 

 lining, and placed in a low stunted bush, about three 

 feet from the -ground. The egg is pure -white. " 



This species, like the two preceding, has been exhi- 

 bited at the Zoological Gardens, and of late years speci- 

 mens of P. melba have been exhibited at various bird- 

 shows. Mr. Hawkins' pair of the species (is a well- 

 known exhibit. 



YELLOW-THROATED WAXBILL (Pytdia citerior). 



The male differs from that sex of P. melba in 

 having no scarlet on the lower throat, which (with the 

 fore neck) is golden yellow ; thighs white ; beak dull 

 red; feet fleshy brown; irides pale brown (Witherby), 

 red (Heuglin). Female has no red or yellow on head 

 or throat; forehead ashy-brown, like the crown, sides 

 of head paler ashy ; chin and throat white narrowly 

 barred with ashy-brown, most strongly on lower half, 

 where the alternate brown and white bars are of equal 

 width ; on the rest of underparts the brown bars are 

 paler, rather broader and more confined to the sides. 

 Hab. Senegal River to Old Calabar, eastward to the 

 Nile. Shelley. 



The following notes are from Shelley's " Birds of 

 Africa," Vol. IV., Part 1, p. 272 : Witherby writes: 

 " Wherever the Sout-trees were thick enough to form 

 a wood these birds were generally to be found." Mr. 

 A. L. Butler -writes : " Common in the Sout-trees round 

 Fatasha and breeding there in January. Its call-note is 

 a long plaintive whistle." Heuglin says : " They were 

 generally met with singly or in pairs frequenting clumps 

 of trees and bushes, -and hopping to and fro from the 

 lower branches to the ground ; they -were never found 

 among rocks and rarely in the open grass country." This 

 species also has been exhibited at the London Gardens. 



CORDON BLEU, OR CRIMSON-EARED WAXBILL 



( I ' rn i/iiif/i ii.-- jihcenicotis) .* 



The cock Cordon Bleu is of a mouse-brown colour 

 above ; the rump and upper tail coverts of a bright 

 lazuline blue ; tail dull Prussian blue ; cheeks, throat, 

 and breast lazuline blue ; a large crimson crescent on 

 the ear-coverts behind the eye; the eye itself has 

 a crimson iris and is bordered, in this sex, 'by a 

 narrow pale zone ; the remainder of the under surface, 

 with the exception of the feathers covering the thighs 

 (which are partly blue), is of a pale dove-brown colour ; 

 feet flesh coloured ; beak crimson, tipped with 

 blackish. The hen chiefly differs from the cock in the 

 absence of the crimson patch on the cheeks. Hab., 

 "Tropical Africa between 17 deg. N. lat., and 10 deg. 

 S. lat." Shelley. 



Capt. Shelley calls this bird U. "bengalus, but I see no 

 advantage in setting aside a name long familiar to orni- 

 thologists for the sake of one which may have been 

 given in ignorance of the habitat of the speciest : then 

 again the name "mariposa" is, I think, hardly classical, 

 though a familiar Spanish word. 



According to- Von Heuglin, this bird is not very 

 abundant in Abyssinia, and, as a rule, is seen either 



THE CORDON BLEC. 



singly or in pairs in thorn hedges near villages or farms 

 and in wooded country near water. The nest is said 

 to be untidy and without definite shape externally, 

 resembling little stray collections of straw ; a slanting 

 covered entrance runs upwards into the nest-cavity, 

 'which is neatly lined with grass, feathers, and wool. 

 The eggs are of the usual white colour, and number 

 from three to six. 



The following notes are from Shelley's " Birds of 

 Africa," Vol. IV., pp. 187-190: "At the Gambia Dr. 

 Rendall took a nest containing seven white eggs ; this 

 nest was built (in the long grass and was a slight 

 structure." " Bohm procured specimens at Kak-oma 

 and in the Ugogo country, .and found it in pairs or 

 family parties, frequenting alike the bushy country by 

 the water-side, the dry grassy plains and the outskirts 

 of villages, and observed it once soar in the air. 

 Fischer remarks that, like many of the other small 

 African birds, they frequently breed ift the proximity 

 of wasps' nests, and amongst the homes so placed he 

 found four of the present species, three of the Sunbirds, 

 and one of Spermestes scutatus. He also observed a 

 pair of these birds breeding in a deserted nest of 

 HypJiantornis bojeri." 



Mr. A. L. Butler Avrites to me : " At Jebel Ain, on 

 November 15, 1902, I put a hen bird off her nest. The 

 nest was oval horizontally, with the entrance at one 



* I follow Shelley's nomenclature for the genus here, as the 

 Cordon Bleus are far more like the Violet-eared Waxbill than the 

 typical Astrilds. 

 t Captain Shelley believes Bengala to be a corruption of Benguela. 



