pleasure to read about, and perhaps enable some of us to follow

in his footsteps ; yet, more often than not, the recital of these

items adds little or nothing to the sum of fadts already recorded

in Kuropean works.


On the other hand, every new item made known to the

world is a distinct gain to mankind : in that it assists in the

great scheme of education, in which, whether we recognize it or

not, we are all interested.


The first duty of the breeder is to describe the nest, the

eggs, the time of incubation, and the nesting plumage of every

species reared by him ; provided that it has not alread}^ been

thoroughly done by some previous breeder ; then the date at

which the young leave their nest should be noted, in order to

decide how long this infant plumage is retained ; and the change

to the adult plumage should be carefully studied.


I know that one objection will at once be raised to this ;

an objection which never daunted Dr. Russ, and which is based

upon an error of observation. It will' be said that it is impossible

to examine a nest without causing the parents to desert their

eggs and young. I can only say that I have lifted down boxes

containing nests and eggs of Java Sparrows, Saffron-finches,

Zebra-finches and others ; have even pulled out the linings and

replaced them by cleaner ones, restoring young or eggs after

the process, and hanging up the boxes again. I have done this

not once but dozens of times, and do not remember ever to have

lost a brood thereby.


Some birds, such as Blue Robins, get excited and fly about

wildly whilst you examine their young, but no sooner are 3''0U

out of the aviary than they return to the nest and are as

assiduous in their attention to their offspring as before. It is not

one deliberate and quiet examination which scares most birds

from their duties, but that idle curiosity which tempts some avi-

culturists to look frequently to see how matters are progressing.


The Zebra-finch above manj^ birds has been credited with

foolish nervousness about its nest : I will therefore put on record

here one out of many instances in which I have meddled with it.

I^ast year I hung up a cocoa-nut shell among other nesting-

receptacles in one of my aviaries ; a pair of Zebra-finches soon

took possession, and having carelessly lined the shell settled

down to rear a family, but only hatched one out of four eggs.

One day I noticed that both birds were absent from the nest, so

climbing on a bank, I looked into the shell but could see nothing

but what seemed to be a little fluff (which I took for lining) at



