3S0 Canaries and Cage-Birds. 



I have kept this bu-d many years, and yet can say very Httle about him. He is very 

 pretty and very peaceful, active and intelligent ; male and female are very affectionate towards 

 each other, and with proper care the Zebra Waxbill will live and display the beauty of 

 his plumage to perfection. But his little song is only heard at breeding-time, and to breed 

 him successfully requires two things — high temperature and fresh ants' eggs. Dr. Russ mentions 

 an instance of one pair of Zebra Waxbills having brought up fifty-four young in one year, sixty- 

 seven eggs having been removed from the nests of the same pair, giving a total of one hundred and 

 twenty-one eggs laid by one hen-bird in a twelvemonth. This shows to what degree of unnatural 

 productiveness these little birds may be stimulated. On the other hand, most beginners " in 

 bird-keeping complain that these, like the other African dwarf Finches, die without apparent 

 cause. I would advise these disappointed amateurs just to pluck the feathers off a dead 

 African Waxbill, note the small size of the body of the bird, and then think of the hardships 

 which the diminutive mechanism in this body had endured while alive, during the voyage from 

 Africa, in the hands of wholesale and retail dealers, and in transit to his final owner. Then 

 the bird has possibly been expected to live in a draughty corner of a room or near the ceiling, 

 in an atmosphere heated and vitiated beyond endurance by gas during the evening, chilly at 

 night, and with the probability of a servant opening door and windows to the raw and foggy 

 morning air before lighting the fire. Some amateurs wonder why a poor bird dies, but if we 

 think a little we must wonder that they endure as they do. 



Food and general treatment should be like that of other African Waxbills. 



With the Zebra Waxbill we should, in following the order of the list of the Zoological 

 Society, take leave of the Astrilds, AiginthcB, or Waxbills, by whichever name we may please 

 to designate the slender-billed Dwarf Finches, for next come the stronger-billed Sperinestiiuv 

 and Aviandincs. But between these two families we find a few names of birds which really 

 either belong to the Waxbill tribe, or at all events should be placed midway between the 

 Waxbills and the stronger-billed Finches. These few birds happen to be of extraordinary 

 beauty, but unfortunately very rare until now. 



PYTELIA WIENERI, Afrtca. 

 ALginlha WLneri (Russ). German — "Wiener's Astrild." 



As an instance of the incomplete state of our knowledge of African and other foreign 

 birds, Pytelia Wieneri deserves a passing notice. In the year 1877 I purchased four little 

 birds from a dealer in London, the like of which I had never seen before, and though they 

 reminded me of Pytelia vielba, yet they were evidently not the same, for the wings and 

 most of the other parts of the plumage were deep orange, shaded with olive-green, and 

 the lower part appeared a very pale mixture of olive-green and grey with yellowish bars. 

 The crimson face, the figure of the bird, and other details left very little doubt that the 

 bird belonged to the class of Pytelia, but the British Museum contained not a skin of 

 a bird agreeing with my four live Finches, and the British Museum Library contained not a 

 work in which this bird was found described. In the course of time two of these birds died, 

 and one skin is now in the British Museum, the other was sent over to Berlin. The greatest 

 living authorities are agreed that this bird had either been overlooked altogether, or mis- 

 described beyond recognition. Dr. Russ and Dr. Otto Finsch have been good enough to 

 name the bird after me, because accident put me in possession of the few live specimens- 

 which may or may not be the only ones ever brought alive to Europe. 



Unfortunately I could not induce the birds to breed, although they made themselves at 



