i26 FOREIGN FINCHES IN CAPTIVITY. 



THE CORDON BLEU. 



Estrilda pheenicotis, SWAINS. 



THIS little bird, which is also known as the Crimson-eared Waxbill, 

 is largely imported, and consequently, in spite of its great beauty, 

 is obtainable at a very reasonable rate. It inhabits Senegambia to the 

 Gaboon, N.E. and Eastern Africa, as far south as the Zanzibar district; 

 Equatorial Africa and the Congo River. The male above is of a 

 mouse-brown colour, with the lower back and upper tail-coverts of a 

 bright cobalt blue ; the tail, Prussian blue ; the cheeks, throat and 

 breast cobalt blue, this colour also extending along the sides of the 

 body ; the ear-coverts bright crimson, forming a crescentic patch ; 

 centre of breast, abdomen, thighs, and under wing and tail-coverts, 

 pale mouse-brown ; the flight feathers above and below dull brown ; 

 length 4 T 7 tr inches. Beak crimson ; legs flesh-coloured ; iris yellowish ; 

 feathers encircling eye slightly paler than on the rest of the face. 



The female chiefly differs from the male in the want of the 

 crimson ear-patch. 



In its wild state, according to Heuglin : " This delicate little 

 bird lives in Abyssinia up to 7000 feet above the sea level, in Takar, 

 Senaar, on the White Nile, and in Kordofan : it is nowhere exactly 

 abundant, does not, like its relations, collect into large companies, but 

 is mostly seen singly or in pairs, both in thorn-hedges about villages 

 and farm-holdings, and in forest region, especially in the vicinity of 

 water courses. It is a resident bird, and incubates in extremely 

 peculiar nests, which if casually examined, have no distinct form, and 

 appear to hang in a bush like little stray heaps of straw ; they are 

 loosely placed between knots and twigs, or in hedges, generally at a 

 height of from 4 to 8 feet. The exterior of the entire completed nest 

 consists of fine dry straw stalks, the points of which usually run 

 inwards, in a definitely oblique direction, towards the top ; a little 

 concealed sloping opening leads into the very elegant nest-cavity, 

 which is lined with grasses, feathers and wool. Before, after, and 

 during the rainy season, I found in them from three to six pure 



