4290 _ Tue ZooLocist—JANvARY, 1875. 
annoyance and disappointment. I think the mice, which I cannot 
altogether keep.down, may have something to do with it; and I 
have a strong suspicion that bullfinches and greenfinches may be 
in part the culprits: anyhow, the latter manage to bring up their 
own young and protect their own nests. 
Turtle Doves Nesting in Confinement.—A pair of turtle doves, 
caught wild two years back, began to build in my aviary in the middle 
of April, and the female commenced sitting on two eggs by the 24th, 
and two young birds were hatched on the 9th of May, or perhaps 
a day or two before. The old birds took it by turns to sit, and 
persecuted most relentlessly the only young bird that they reared 
last summer; the old male, especially, driving it from perch to 
perch, or on the ground chasing it round the aviary, pecking at it, 
and uttering a curious croaking note, more like a short cough than a 
“coo.” One of the young birds left the nest on the 21st of May; 
the other the day following; and were then able to fly a little. 
Two more eggs were laid by the 20th of June, and two nestlings 
hatched in July, during my absence from home. The young 
appear to acquire their full plumage very rapidly, as by the end 
of September I could only distinguish the pair hatched in May 
from the parent birds by the black and white bars on the sides of 
the neck being still incomplete, the same marks being scarcely 
perceptible in the young of the second brood. 
Snow Buntings Nesting in Confinement.—The most interesting 
event in my aviary, this summer, has been the nesting of a pair of 
snow buntings; my oldest male bird, netted last winter, having 
mated with the youngest female in my collection, judging by the 
darkness of her plumage. The old male, by the end of May, had 
acquired the pure black and white tints of its summer plumage; 
and on the 7th of June I first noticed the female collecting 
materials for a nest, and slyly disappearing with them into a 
crevice of the car-stone rock-work which supports my fountain- 
basin. The male bird took no part in this work, nor did I ever 
see him carrying anything in his bill, but he seemed to constitute 
himself the guardian of the entrance to his mate’s nesting-place, 
and would allow no other birds—whether of his own species or 
otherwise—to settle near the spot. The female was particularly 
jealous of observation, and would never enter the hole if she saw 
me watching her, but, with her mouth full of grass or twigs, 
would run all over the rock-work, peeping into other holes and 
