io8 FOREIGN FINCHES IN CAPTIVITY. 



perhaps, a little less delicate, but I have never known it to live very 

 long in any of niy aviaries ; though in a cage with other Waxbills, 

 and with a box to which it can retire at pleasure, it does not seem 

 to mind a temperature of 50 degrees, or even somewhat lower.* 



Dr. Russ, who probably is able to secure a higher temperature 

 than I have at command, does not appear to have much difficulty in 

 keeping this, or the other African Waxbills in vigorous health. He 

 says of this species: "Once again one of the most abundant, most 

 beautiful, and most beloved of the Astrilds. It hardly ever comes into 

 the market out of feather ; and after their arrival fewer individuals die 

 than in the case of several other species ; with proper attention it 

 keeps in good health in the dealers' cages for years, only it usually 

 becomes black. 



"It wonderfully soon takes steps to breed, whether flying at large 

 in a bird-room, or in a small cage. The power of production of this 

 species is astounding ; the first pair in my bird-room bred seven times 

 in vain, and only the eighth time, when small fresh ants' eggs had 

 been obtained, was a brood of five young ones satisfactorily reared. 

 A pair belonging to Dr. Rey, of Halle, produced fifty-four young in 

 the course of one year, which, however, all died;^ besides this sixty- 

 seven eggs were taken away. The love-dance is comical ; the song 

 scarcely more than a Sparrow-like, yet not inharmonious chirp, re- 

 peated an innumerable quantity of times in the early morning during 

 the nesting season. Nest in a little Hartz cage, with basket nest, or 

 in a little lined nest-basket, or a very small Frithauf s nest-box, f open 

 in front, always high up : somewhat negligent, as compared with those 

 of the nearly allied Astrilds ; of strips of paper and bast, cotton threads, 

 fibres and hay-stalks loosely thrown together, arched over, with a 

 lateral, broad, and scarcely rounded entrance ; inside, on the contrary, 

 rather carefully lined with horse-hair, wadding, and soft feathers. 

 Laying three to four, even sometimes seven to nine eggs, which are 

 incubated alternately by the male and female for two hours at a time. 

 Nestling-down whitish yellow. Expansions of the beak yellowish white. 



* During one night of the winter of 1894-5, the temperature fell to 34 degrees without 

 affecting it. A.G.B. 



t Characterized by Dr. Russ as a " Friihauf'cheu Nistkasten." I at first imagined that this 

 might be a cigar-box to contain "Early weeds," somewhat after the style of the " Zwischen-Act 

 Cigarren " sold in Germany. Several Germans whom I asked were quite unable to give me a 

 better explanation ; but one gentleman wrote to his friends in Germany, who told him it was a 

 cage in which to take out an Eagle-Owl to the chase : this gave me a false clue, although I 

 never heard of that bird being used for hawking. Finally, Dr. Jordan, of the Tring Museum, 

 sent me a cutting from a German newspaper, advertising " Friihauf's Nest-boxes, always recom- 

 mended by Mr. Carl Russ, in his Works." Sold by Carl Friihauf, of Schleusiugen, Thuringia - 

 A.G.I!. 



