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is the Aurora Finch. This is my favourite bird and I always

keep four or five pairs at least. Confiding, good-natured, and

never ill when once acclimatized, I know no species that nests

so readity, so successfully, and with such unfailing regularity.

The pairs generally use cocoa-nuts or nesting-boxes, placed

side by side, and they are absolutely fearless. I have known a

ben continue sitting while the top of the nesting box was being

scraped. And these are birds that we have been told are unsuit¬

able for a bird-room ! The Crimson-faced Waxbill (. Pytelia melba)

is far other in disposition. I should call it spiteful, were

it not so lazy that it only snaps at every bird that comes near it,

and never takes the trouble to chase smaller Waxbills. The

French dealers consider this the most delicate of the imported

African Waxbills, but I have had several cocks, and have not

found them particularly so. It certainly is a remarkably pretty

bird, and it is a pity that the hen is so seldom seen, as if a high

temperature was kept up, it might be induced to breed. It is

half insectivorous.


It is unnecessary to more than mention a number of such

ornamental finches as Double Banded and Cherry Finches and

Sydney Waxbills, save to say that not even the Zebra Finch has

bred with me. Probably the bird-room is too crowded for fussy

or nervous birds to go to nest successfully.


A hen Combasou laid eggs several times last summer.

Unfortunately she was very much weakened, and has since died

in moult.


The only Mannikins worth mentioning are the Javan

Maia Finch (Munia ferruginosa), five varieties of the Spice bird,

a pair of Pectoral Finches, and the Scaly-throated Sharp-tailed

Finch (Urolo 7 icha squamicollis). A small herd of Sharp-tailed,

Striated and Bengalese Mannikins do nothing but crowd, a

dozen at a time, into a nest-box ‘ made for two.’ They are all

more or less unsatisfactory birds when kept in any number. The

way in which a collection of Bengalese will pile themselves on

the top of one unfortunate egg is most aggravating.


Several pairs of the Ruficauda bring me to the true Grass

Finches (. Poephila ). Of these I have all the species mentioned in

the Museum Catalogue—Parson Finches, Dong-tailed Grass

Finches (P. acuticauda), Masked Finches (P. per sonata), White¬

eared Finches (P. leucotis), and Goulds. There seems to be

some confusion between the Masked and White-eared Pinches,

the former being exhibited under the latter name, and single

specimens of each being sold as pairs. The absence of any



