142 FOREIGN FINCHES IN CAPTIVITY. 



THE SYDNEY WAXBILL 



/Egintha temporalis, LATH. 



T NHABITS Australia from Queensland, to Wide Bay District, and 

 1 New South Wales. The general colouring of the upper surface 

 is olive- green ; the flight feathers with brownish grey inner webs : 

 upper tail-coverts crimson ; central tail feathers black, the remainder 

 brown ; crown of head and nape slate-grey ; a broad carmine streak 

 from the base of the beak, partly enclosing the eye and extending to 

 above the ear-coverts ; eyelid crimson above, grey below ; sides of face 

 and throat ash-grey, chin whiter ; breast and abdomen smoky pearl- 

 grey at the sides, pale brownish-buff in the centre ; under wing-coverts 

 white, tinted with brown ; flight and tail feathers below smoky grey, 

 browner at the edges. Length 4* inches. Beak carmine; the ridge 

 black, so that when viewed from above the upper mandible appears to 

 be black with carmine borders, the under surface of the lower mandible 

 more intensely black excepting at the tip ; legs pale yellowish horn- 

 colour ; iris crimson. 



I wintered this hardy little Waxbill in a cold aviary, where, on 

 several occasions, the thermometer registered twelve degrees of frost, 

 and apparently it was none the worse for the exposure ; it however, 

 died towards autumn of the succeeding year ; so that it is possible 

 that it may have contracted a pulmonary disease. Nevertheless, I 

 should fully expect that examples, if reared in this country, would 

 prove to be fully capable of withstanding severe winters as easily as 

 the little Australian Zebra-finch. 



Gould observes that: "This species of Finch is very generally 

 spread over the gardens, and all such open pasture lands of New 

 South Wales and South Australia, as abound in grasses and small 

 plants, upon the seeds of which it chiefly subsists. It is particularly 

 abundant in the neighbourhood of Sydne}' ; even in the Botanic 

 Gardens numbers may always be seen flitting from border to border. 

 It is easily domesticated, and is of a lively disposition in captivity, 

 even old birds becoming perfectly reconciled after a few days. In 

 autumn it is gregarious, and Mr. Caley states it often assembles in 



