3S: 



C AX ARIES AXD CaGE-BiRDS. 



such, he brought me the birds for inspection. They proved to be a pair of Painted Finches, 

 and were probably the first ever brought alive to Europe. I purchased them as a matter of 

 course, and kept them for a little while. Again, in 1873, I heard when in Liverpool that a 

 hairdresser in one of the most elegant streets of the town had a number of foreio-n birds. 

 This intelligence caused me to require hair-cutting at once. In the hairdresser's stock of birds 

 I saw, to my astonishment, a pair of Eviblema picta, which their owner was pleased to call 

 "Australian Mountain Diamond Sparrows." I left Liverpool with the prize in my possession, 

 and have wished ever since I had known then what I know now, about the best and 

 safest treatment of rare Australian Finches. The Museum at Berlin was very glad to receive 

 the skin of one of these Painted Finches. 



A few years later, in 1877, I paid one of my periodical visits to Mr. Hawkins' shop in 

 Bear Street, Leicester Square, -who showed me the bodies of some birds which had died soon after 

 their arrival from Antwerp. Among these was the body of a young male Painted Finch. 

 Dr. Russ received one live specimen from Hamburg within the last two years, and heard of 

 another which arrived at Trieste. It is thus abundantly clear that the Painted Finch does 

 arrive sometimes, and in five or ten years' time he may be as easily obtainable as other 

 Australian Finches which were almost unknown to amateurs a few years ago. 



The upper part of the Painted Finch and the tail are brown ; the face, the throat, and 

 the root of the tail are scarlet ; the chest and abdomen being jet-black, with white spots on 

 the sides. On the middle of the abdomen is a crimson patch, shaded towards the chest and 

 sides. The upper mandible of the beak is black, the lower one red. Females (and young 

 males i") have more of an olive-greenish tinge on the back ; the scarlet of the face does not 

 extend over the throat and chest, which are rather greyish-green, and the diffused patch of 

 red on the abdomen is absent. Should this magnificent bird ever come into the hands of an 

 amateur, let him give millet in the ear, flowering grass, and a few mealworms. 



