RED-HEADED FINCH. 



175 



owners whenever they approach ; the song is a low, 

 effervescent, bubbling sort of production, but not un- 

 pleasing. 



Of late years I have been singularly unlucky in my 

 attempts to 'breed this species, the hens dying from egg- 

 binding in almost every instance, although supplied 

 with plenty of lime, and the cocks soon after, from no 

 perceptible cause. 



Amadina marginalia of Sharp e was based upon two 

 skins said to 'be from West Africa, one of them ap- 

 parently having been a cage-bird. They are said to be 

 more rufous in colouring than the common Ribbon Finch, 

 with a deeper band on the throat, and the feathers of 

 'breast and flanks edged, not subterminally barred, with 

 black. Two more skins have been added ; but all four 

 .are simply recorded as coming from West Africa. 



Dr. Reichenow considers this to be a variety of A. 



RED-HEADED FINCH. 



fasciata, but Capt. Shelley observes " that may be the 

 case if all the four known specimens were cage-birds." 

 Two are admitted to 'be cage-birds ; of the others one 

 was presented by Mr. J. Pulham (and to me looks very 

 like a cage-bird), the other was from Sir Andrew Smith's 

 collection. 



To me it has always seemed far more probable that 

 A. marginalis is a 'hybrid between A. fasciata and 

 A. erythrocephala than that it is a variety of the former. 

 Hybrids between the two have been bred both in Ger- 

 many and England, but I have seeM none of them, and 

 hitherto my efforts to produce them in cage and aviary 

 have all been foiled by the death of the hen Ribbon 

 Finches from egg-binding. 



RED-HEADED FINCH (Amadina erythroceiihala), 



The upper side of the male is brown, below greyer, 

 with a ruddy tinge and dark-brown bars, giving it a 

 scaled appearance ; head crimson ; upper tail-coverts 

 barred with brown ; tail brown, the feathers, excepting 

 the outer ones, white tipped, the two outer ones with 

 white external margins. The female similar, but without 

 the crimson head and with greyer under parts. Beak 

 horn-coloured; feet flesh-coloured; iris hazel. Hab., 



Southern Africa southward from Angola and Matabele- 

 land. 



In October, in its native country, this bird congre- 

 gates in large flocks near the rivers; it breeds about 

 May or June, usually building its nest of small sticks, 

 fine roots, etc., and lining them with wool, feathers, or 

 other soft materials. 



In Layard's "Birds of South Africa" we read that 

 Mr. Ortlepp came upon- large flocks of this species. At 

 Priel " he found a colony in a large ' wait-a-bit ' thorn ; 

 a cartload of grass! stuck in a fork, with two or three 

 dozen apertures bored in below." 



In confinement the Red-headed Finch breeds, after 

 the manner of the Ribbon Finch, with which, accord- 

 ing to Dr. Russ, it will not only cross, but 'produce 

 fertile_ hybrids ; the latter product, if not identical with 

 Amadina marginalis, must surely closely resemble it. 



In 1898 Lieut. E. D. H. 

 Daly bred this hybrid after 

 losing a hen Red-headed 

 Finch and four hen Ribbon 

 Finches from egg-binding. 



On April 15th, 19C5, I 

 bought a pair of Red-headed 

 Finches for 25s., in the hope 

 of breeding the species, 'but 

 the hen died egg-bound on 

 the 25th of the same month. 

 I then purchased two hen 

 Ribbon-finches, which I 

 turned in with the widower. 

 He took up with one of 

 them, but drove the other 

 away whenever it approached 

 him. In 1906 Mr. W. E. 

 Teschemaker sent me a 

 young male Red -headed 

 Finch which he had _ bred, 

 and I paired up my odd hen 

 Ribbon-finch with it, keep- 

 ing them in a good-sized 

 flight-cage. Towards the 

 end of the year the hen died 

 egg-bound. On November 

 27th Lieut. Horsbrugh sent 

 me two cock Red-headed 

 Finches, and Mr. Silver 



kindly purchased for me, at my request, two hen Ribbon- 

 finches. I turned one into an aviary with one of the new 

 cocks, and the other into the flight-cage with Mr. 

 Teschemaker's present, taking away the nest-box to 

 prevent their attempting to breed during the winter. 

 In 1907 I turned the latter pair into my larger 

 garden aviary, but no attempt at breeding was made 

 that year. In April, 1908, as only one hen remained 

 alive, I purchased three more and paired them up with 

 the three widowed cocks. 



Mr. Erskine Allon had the same trouble as other 

 aviculturists with the hens of Red-headed and Ribbon 

 Finches; they all died egg-bound. 



Some years since Mr. Abrahams informed me that 

 he had seen a hybrid between the Ribbon Finch and 

 Java Sparrow ; so, having a very tame home-bred cock 

 Ribbon Finch, I paired it up with a home-bred hen 

 Java Sparrow, and kept them together in a flight-cage 

 for over two years. Numbers of eggs were produced, 

 but not one hatched, and I am convinced that the 

 larger Red-headed Finch must have been the parent of 

 the hybrid seen by Mr. Abrahams. The disparity in 

 size between the other two species is too great to 

 render a successful fertilisation likely, though it may 



