THE RIBBON FINCH. 185 



the second week of September ; two or three days later they were quite 

 able to feed themselves, and, as I found that they disturbed their 

 parents, I took them away. 



Now occurred the most astonishing thing which I have ever noticed 

 in breeding birds. Whereas, most birds when relieved of their full- 

 fledged young seem to be rather pleased than otherwise, whilst the 

 young, if plentifully supplied with seed and soft food, are utterly 

 indifferent to the loss of their parents, I found my Ribbon Finches, 

 both parents and young, perfectly frantic over the separation for two 

 or three days, dashing wildly to and fro, and calling repeatedly to one 

 another. After this, the old birds again settled down, the hen this 

 time laying three eggs, hatching all and, when the nestlings were about 

 a week old, again carrying out one dead. The two others, again a 

 pair, left the nest in the first week of November. On the morning of 

 October i2th, one of the young hens, of the first nest, commenced to 

 lay, and in the afternoon of the same day, the other hen from the 

 same nest deposited an egg on the sand. I now separated the pairs, 

 giving each a nesting-box ; but, owing to their getting too fat, and to 

 the cold of the winter, I lost both these young hens from egg-binding, 

 one of them having already deposited eight eggs in her nest. The 

 third pair, produced from my second nest, were still living, and in 

 excellent health, in February, 1894. 



Dr. Russ says of the Ribbon Finch : " Imported into Kurope for 

 longer than a hundred years, beloved up to the present time. Already 

 bred by Vieillot in 1790; in Germany, by Dr. K. Bolle, in 1859. 

 More recently so abundantly bred in bird-rooms and breeding-cages, 

 that the fledglings at times exceeded the imported birds. A T est 

 careless, in nest-boxes enclosed up to the flight passage*, or some 

 other cavity ; only of a little coarse building material, stalks, fibres, 

 threads, feathers and other things. Laying: four to seven eggs. 

 Duration of incubation : twelve days. The male when he relieves the 

 hen always brings a stalk in with him. Nests at any time of year, 

 many pairs five to six times, sometimes without intermission through- 

 out the year. Nestling-down sparse, bluish ; waxy skin-glands white, 

 later blackish blue. Young phcmage almost like that of the adult 

 female, but paler, whitish-grey, not brownish ; young male already 

 with the red throat-ribbon and breast spot ; beak dark-grey ; feet 

 white-grey. Change of colour : all the markings become more pronounced. 

 Young female already capable of nesting after two or three months. 



* Presumably Cigar-boxes ; hung up perpendicularly, with the upper fourth of the lid sawii 

 off and the other three-fourths nailed down. A.G.B. 



