54 



worthy of notice as exceedingly rare in living collections, 

 though common enough in Andalucia and North-west 

 Africa. Perhaps the most beautiful of the web-footed 

 birds in this portion of our aviaries are the Japanese 

 teals ; but with these little ducks, as indeed with almost 

 all others of the duck family, we have been grievously 

 disappointed in our hopes of nests and eggs ; in fact, 

 in the case of the two last-mentioned species, I am not 

 aware of the production of even a single egg. We have 

 a fine pair of the blue wavy or white-necked goose from 

 North America, and of the white snow-goose from the 

 same country. 



" In the central aviary will be found two very beautiful 

 species of small herons, the little and the buff-backed 

 egrets. My specimens came to me from Spain, but the 

 latter bird is also very abundant in Egypt, and is con- 

 stantly pointed out by the guides to British tourists as 

 the sacred ibis of the ancient Egyptians, a bird that has 

 for many years been almost unknown in Lower Egypt. 

 These egrets are most adroit fly-catchers, and my birds 

 feed themselves to a great extent on these pests during 

 the summer months. I have at this moment a dominican 

 gull that has been here for more than twenty years, and 

 has reared several broods of young hybrids, produced by 

 a cross with the common British herring gull. An 

 Australian thick- knee, or stone curlew, is a very great 

 favourite with us, from its tameness and quaint attitudes ; 

 this is a handsome bird, considerably larger than the 



