40 FOREIGN FINCHES IN CAPTIVITY. 



brightest on the hind back and upper tail-coverts ; the flight-feathers 

 black, tipped with pale chocolate-reddish, excepting the secondaries, 

 which are tipped and bordered with bright chocolate, increasing in 

 width towards the body, the last secondaries being almost wholly of 

 this colour ; the breast, abdomen, and under tail-coverts, dull huffish- 

 white, a little purer at the sides of the chest ; more or less mottled 

 with black at the sides of the chest and abdomen ; quills below dead 

 black ; tail-feathers below greyish-chocolate, darker on the outer web 

 and with short black terminal shaft-streaks. Length 4-^ inches. Beak 

 pale greyish-brown, darker on the upper mandible ; legs slaty-grey ; 

 iris brown. 



The hen is smaller and altogether greyer than the male bird ; the 

 black of the head, neck, throat, chest, etc., are wanting ; being only 

 represented by sooty mottling on the throat and centre of chest ; even 

 the black of the flight feathers is duller and internally greyer ; the 

 under surface colouring is browner, being whitish in the centre of 

 abdomen and vent ; the reddish colouring above is almost lost excepting 

 on the hinder part of the body, the tail, the wing-coverts, and secondaries. 

 Length 4^ inches. 



The young nearly resemble the hen, but are more tawny in colour- 

 ing, with the feathers above streaked, and those on the throat, breast, 

 and sides, spotted with sooty blackish. 



I purchased a pair of Alario Finches from Mr. Abrahams, about 

 the year 1889, and turned them into my Waxbill aviary, in the hope 

 that I should be able to breed them ; the cock was in full song, and 

 there is little question that I should have been successful, but unfortu- 

 nately one night he took fright, flew out excitedly from his perch, and 

 striking his head against a branch, fell dead with a fractured skull : 

 the hen lived happily among my tiny Finches for eighteen months, 

 leading a very uneventful existence, but one frosty night a sudden fall 

 in the temperature gave her a cold, from which she never recovered. 

 In 1897, a male obtained in 1890, which was still in vigorous health, 

 picked up and frequently repeated the complete song of the Norwich 

 Canary, whilst a second male, in my outer aviary, learnt and improved 

 upon the song of the Linnet. 



At the annual bird show at the Crystal Palace for 1890, Mr. J. 

 Leslie exhibited a mule, which he had bred between this bird and a 

 Canary ; but, as might have been expected, the judge was too conser- 

 vative to consider a cross between an African bird and a Canary worth 

 even a commendation : yet, to all lovers of foreign birds, that must 

 have been by far the most interesting mule in the show ; something 



