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brown. It is possible that the colour fades after death, or that

there is a local difference in birds of the same species.


One hen soon laid on the floor of the large cage into

which I put them on arrival, and I reared a pretty adtive young

one under a pair of Barbary Turtles. It was a fascinating little

creature, and, to my great regret, fell a vidtim to a marauding

cat. I have this year, for the first time, lost several favourites in

the same way. These grimalkins take up their quarters in my

woods, and at night, apparently, climb the aviaries and terrify

the inmates till they fall exhausted on the ground, and then

drag them, or limbs of them, through the wire netting. To any

aviculturist, plagued in the same way, I give the hint, that when

the netting besides being of small mesh, is also of very strong

gauge, and where it does not run to the ground, but the lower

part of the flight is boarded, then no such mishaps have taken

place. To return to the Doves—I have nowhere seen any either

in English or Continental collections. Their coo is very peculiar,

and musically mournful, utterly unlike that of any other Dove

I know.


2. A pair of Crested Marsh Doves of Australia (Ocy-

phcips lophotesJ, which during five years never nested at all,

though the hen continually dropped eggs about, have this 3 T ear,

between the middle of March and the middle of August, nested

five times in the same basket. This change I attribute to the

growth of shrubs and climbers in the aviary. I had always

supplied divers nest-boxes and baskets on shelves or tied to pegs

in the inner house, such as I have elsewhere seen these Doves

nesting in, but all to no purpose. East March I one day heard

the hen making a peculiar noise in a thick bush of French

honeysuckle; I took the hint, fetched a little basket and tied it in

the bush to the external wire netting. In an hour she was in it, the

next day laid her first egg, and has since ever stuck to it and reared

several young ones. These Doves sit about nineteen days, and

the precocity of the 3 r oung is wonderful ; one flew from the nest

to a high perch on its thirteenth day. In the earlier days of the

importation of these Doves, they persisted at Knowsley in

breeding in the winter, and indeed, my own, some 3^ears ago,

began to lay early in February ; but b> T degrees they seem

inclined to conform to our English seasons.


3. Then I have a pair of Bronze - necked (Geopelia

humeralisJ now sitting. I have had the cock over six years,

several of which he spent with his original mate in a commodious

aviary ; he made nests and sat on them, but she never laid. I



