THE Two-CoLOURRn MANNIKIN. 257 



and was pronounced by a friend to be that of the Bronze Mannikin, 

 and it was not until years later, when two specimens of the latter 

 species had died, and I was able to compare the skins, that I discovered 

 the blunder. 



The wild life of this bird is probably similar to that of the Bronze 

 Manuikin ; but remarkably little seems to have been observed, by 

 travellers, of the habits of the smaller West African Finches : they seem 

 too frequently to have been content to destroy life, without one thought 

 for their victims, or one desire to know anything of their domestic 

 economy. In short, to be a first-rate collector, a man needs only to 

 be a good shot, and to know how to skin well ; he must set aside all 

 sentiment, all compunctions ; and, with these qualifications, though he 

 be as ignorant as any savage (with the one exception of being able 

 to jot down locality, date, colours of soft parts and probable sex) he 

 may succeed, in not only making a comfortable living out of his 

 collections, but in being applauded by all into whose hands they 

 come. I do not find fault with such a man ; but surely he who visits 

 the haunts of these tiny feathered beings to learn their life history, 

 and subsequently records it for the instruction of his fellows, is 

 deserving of infinitely greater honours ; he alone is the Naturalist. 



As regards the sexing of birds, I am certain that the notes taken 

 by collectors are often very misleading : I have known taxidermists, 

 supposed to have sufficient experience to be able to sex a bird correctly, 

 to deliberately label a male as a "female" and assure me that they 

 had proved the sex of the bird by dissection; yet I had myself proved 

 the sex, by breeding from it, in captivity with a hen. The average 

 collector is not only just as liable to blunder in his dissections, but 

 he may be misled by seeing one bird feeding another, label them (if 

 of the same size but differing in colours) male and female, or (if one 

 be a little smaller than the other) male and young. It seems certain 

 that, by some such error, many young cock birds in collections are 

 labelled " female " or females " young." A good collector may shoot 

 so many birds in one day, that he will barely have time to make 

 them all into skins, and certainly no time to ascertain their sex by 

 dissection : in such cases, he does incalculable mischief when he sexes 

 them by guesswork, or by some reminiscence of their behaviour, before 

 they were killed. 



Dr. Russ says of S. bicolor: "In its entire behaviour it resembles 

 the little Magpie (Bronze Mannikin) yet does not go to nest so readily, 

 or with such certainty. Mr. Major, of Bomsdorf in Berlin, first 

 attained a satisfactory brood in a large breeding cage, which various 



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