Australian Finches. 391 



and cheerful, he will always let his mate know his whereabouts by a call which reminds one 

 of a wooden halfpenny trumpet. 



The Zebra Finch is one of the smallest Australian Finches, being not larger than a 

 European Wren. His plumage is decidedly pretty, a delicate pearl-grey being the prevailing 

 tint. The lower body is white. A patch of chestnut colour marks the cheeks, and a band 

 of chestnut colour, dotted with white spots, ornaments the sides. The throat is grey, shaded 

 with black, the black forming a sharply defined collar-like mark where it borders on the 

 white of the breast. The black tail is ornamented by white bars across each feather. The 

 bill is brick-red ; the feet also brick-red. The female is without the chestnut-coloured patches 

 and bands on the cheeks and sides, and the lower body is a dull greyish tint. 



There can be no doubt that the Zebra Finch is the best known and deservedly the most 

 popular of all Australian Finches. He has been bred with more general success than any other 

 foreign cage-bird. A little time since large num.bers were bred regularly for sale at the Zoological 

 Gardens in Antwerp, and by private breeders elsewhere on the Continent. Since the price 

 of imported Zebra Finches sank to ten or eight shillings per pair, cage-breeding of Zebra Finches 

 has, however, diminished somewhat. 



A few years ago I exhibited at the Crystal Palace a cage containing thirty-five Zebra 

 Finches, the result of one season's breeding from two pairs ; and other amateurs and -breeders 

 have had success far exceeding mine. The only difficulty in breeding Zebra Finches is their 

 sometimes prodigious reproductiveness. This is almost invariably due to their food being too 

 stimulating, which will result in the birds building nests and laying eggs without hatching 

 them. 



If a healthy and apparently strong pair of Zebra Finches are obtained, it is advisable to 

 keep them for a time without nesting materials, and to feed them only on dry millet and 

 canary seed, with a little green-meat at times. When the birds have become used to their 

 new home and surroundings, and when the perfection of their plumage denotes their perfect 

 health, then — and not before — give them an opportunity to begin to nest. In a cage this 

 opportunity is best given by fixing a roomy nest-box, into which the birds will forthwith carry 

 a mass of any material they can pick up. Bits of hay and straw, moss, small twigs, pieces of 

 green-meat, wool, fibre, feathers — nothing comes amiss to construct as slovenly a nest as any 

 Sparrow ever built. Now is the time to give the Zebxa Finches a very little extra food daily. 

 The eighth part of a sponge-cake, the eighth part of the yolk of a hard-boiled egg or a 

 corresponding quantity of preserved egg, a quarter of a tea-spoonful of maw-seed, and about as 

 much soaked ants' eggs, all mixed together, will be an ample daily allowance for a pair of Zebra 

 Finches, besides their regular dish of millet and canary seed. They will soon lay from four 

 to seven very small white eggs, and hatch them in about eleven days. The young brood will 

 be reared perfectly well on the above food, with a little soaked millet-seed. The young Zebra 

 Finches will emerge from the nest as little pearl-grey birds, with black beaks, and mostly 

 sit in a row on a perch or branch, waiting to be fed by their parents. When about six weeks old 

 the black beak will gradually change to a yellowish brick-red, and the chestnut-coloured ear-marks 

 of the males and the white lower body will become conspicuous. This is the sign that the young 

 birds are fit for breeding, and I have myself observed that a young hen-bird, which I had placed 

 for observation in a separate cage, laid an egg when just three months old. The young broods 

 should be separated from their parents as soon as they are able to feed themselves, for if left in the 

 aviary they will, unless the aviary be very large and the nesting opportunities be very many and 

 extremely varied, almost surely interfere with the success of later broods of their parents, by 



