BIRDS. 



picturesque colony of Tasmania. This little bird can lay claim neither to the array of 

 brilliant tints nor to the vocal accomplishments of the Poephilse. As befits its citizen- 

 ship of a more temperate climate, its plumage is distinguished for the most part by its 

 delicate, alternating, transverse pencillings of dark and light ashen greys. The upper 

 tail-coverts, however, stand out conspicuously from the rest of its plumage by reason of 

 their intense scarlet-carmine hue, which, when the bird flits along the hedgerows 

 or across the woodland glades, seem to glow with the incandescence of a burning 

 coal. No member of the finch tribe, not excepting even the justly belauded British 

 Bullfinch, probably, is so amenable to human influences or becomes so tame and 

 engaging a companion as does the little Australian Firetail. Tasmanian friends have 

 attested to individuals in their possession which would accompany them in their walks 

 abroad, and one of several belonging to the author would, after disporting himself in 

 the garden, return to his cage at a signal whistle. Among themselves, these birds are 

 eminently sociable, assembling and building in company. When several are kept 

 together and allowed their liberty in a dwelling room, they are up to all sorts of 

 frolics, and there is hardly anything that they like better than to join a companion at 

 opposite ends of a strand of cotton and to pull for dear life one against the other in 

 a veritable " tug-of-war." One bird would even address himself so vigorously to this 

 game of cotton-pulling as to allow himself to be lifted off the ground by one end of 

 the fabric, while he held on with his beak to the other, and so hung suspended in the 

 air for several seconds. With their owner, whom they speedily grow to know, 

 Firetails place themselves upon the most familiar terms, exploring his pockets, 

 penetrating up his coat sleeves and taking no end of liberties. One special pet, who 

 travelled home to England, extended his friendship to visitors and manifested a marked 

 partiality for a lady acquaintance, who possessed the, to him, irresistible attraction of 

 a tiny gold mine in one of her front teeth. The ambition to attain access to, and to 

 exploit the profundities of that glittering El Dorado, of which his keen eyes Would 

 detect the most momentary display, was his one endeavour, and with that end in view 

 his pertinacious attentions were somewhat embarrassing. 



Of song, in its true sense, the Firetail is deficient, its vocal powers being limited 

 to a somewhat plaintive piping. So much does this piping resemble that of a remote 

 boatswain's whistle that on the voyage to England an example one day deceived the 

 veteran skipper of the ocean liner, who, while seated at the breakfast table, was 

 astonished to hear the summons, as he thought, without his authority, for the hands 



to shorten sail. Amidst much mirth, the true culprit was unearthed from an adjacent 



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