PONDS, PADDOCKS, AND AVIARIES 69 



glad you have well established your new chat by finding 

 its nest and eggs. Your new titmouse sounds a good 

 thing also. 



" All the blue and ultra blue tits are rather difficult 

 to keep ; but the best chance is to give them flies, 

 mosquitoes, gnats, oven-dried ants and their eggs, and any 

 sort of small caterpillar. Perhaps as good a plan as any 

 would be to give them a growing tree or shrub with 

 free access for the AfhideS) upon which I think our tits 

 principally feed in summer. The Spanish tits make very 

 free with the cochineal bug. The best seed is crushed 

 sunflower and reed seeds, but no seed is good for tits 

 for a continuance." l 



"Bournemouth, December \yth, 1889. 



" I have three of Curruca heinekeni alive, sent home 



last year to me from Madeira by Dr. G . They are 



charming little birds, and all sing well. I have one of 

 them here at my side as I write. Is it a fact that no 

 one has seen a female of this race ? You probably know 

 the Madeira myth that these birds are hatched from 

 every fifth egg laid by S. atricapilla. 



" Another race of Parus in such a limited group of islands 

 as the Canaries is very singular and interesting. It is most 

 kind of you to promise me some specimens of this and 

 a male of !P. -palmensis you have the best of good right 

 to propose a scientific name for this new discovery. 



1 To E. G. B. Meade-Waldo, Esq. 



