204 



SOME AVICULTURAL NOTES. 



W. H. ST. QUINTIN, J. P., F.Z.S. 

 Scampston, E. Yoiks. 



{Contimied from page i68). 



This summer I had a still greater disappointment. A pair 

 of Waxwings nested, and began to sit on the 22nd of June, and 

 a fortnight later the eggs were chipping. The interesting event 

 greatly excited the hen bird, and in the end she positively died 

 in a sort of fit ; while a few hours afterwards the male also 

 succumbed to an effusion of blood upon the brain. I think 

 we had perhaps got the birds in too high condition. They are, 

 as I have said, sluggish birds with great appetites. Being 

 largely eaters of flying insects in a wild state, they get plenty 

 of exercise chasing their food. In an aviary, life is made too- 

 easy for them, and they become apoplectic. I hope to guard 

 against this another year. But we had to deal with the eggs which 

 were chipping and nearly cold. There was luckily in another 

 aviary a Snow-bunting just due to hatch, so the Waxwing's 

 eggs were put under her. Only one hatched, the others having 

 got hopelessly chilled. The Snow-buntings reared their foster- 

 child for a week ; when perhaps because another pair of Snow- 

 buntings were nesting too near, and owing to the resulting 

 quarrels, the nestling Waxwing seemed to be getting neglected, 

 and to be growing weaker. My man conceived the idea of 

 taking it and putting it into a foster-mother, in a Blackbird's 

 nest, lined, and covered with a flap of cotton-wool. Here it 

 was fed at very frequent intervals on flies, fresh ants' eggs,, 

 gentles, and small silk-worms, for three days. There seemed a 

 good chance of rearing it, but one morning it was found dead 

 for no obvious reason ; but being a solitary bird, it may not 

 have been kept warm enough ; on the other hand I do not feel 

 certain that it was not stifled by the wool. This was its 

 eleventh day, and so far this is the greatest age to which a 

 young Waxwing hatched in captivity has attained, though Mr. 

 Reginald Phillipps, who has been wonderfully successful in 

 keeping and breeding delicate and difficult birds, had a brood 

 in his garden aviary in West Kensington this summer, which 

 lived a week, and only succumbed apparently to a spell of 

 very wet weather. 



I should think it likely that the young Waxwing develop- 



Naturalist,- 



