25S



Phillipps has this year reared some of these hybrids from a male

P. cinctci and a female P. acuticauda, and he will be able to

prove in due time whether these will breed.


The Tong-tailed Grassfinch is a very rapid flyer and is a

particularly graceful bird ; I hardly ever have seen a specimen

in really rough plumage ; it seems always to keep itself sleek and

trim.


The colour of the bill seems to vary somewhat in this

species, and I have sometimes thought there must be two distinct

forms. Some specimens have the bill orange yellow, in others

it is quite a reddish orange, and certainly the ones with the

yellower bills seem to be the largest birds and to have the best

developed tail-feathers. That this variation in the colour of the

bill has nothing to do with sex I am perfectly satisfied, for I

have at the present time undoubted pairs of both varieties, and

I am also satisfied that age has nothing to do with it.


I have found egg-shaped reed baskets, seven or eight

inches in length with a hole in one end, greatly appreciated by

this and the other Grassfinches both for sleeping and nesting in,

although the nest is also often built amongst the branches in the

aviary without any artificial framework ; and the only two young

reared this year in my aviary were hatched in a nest of this kind.

Grass seems to be the material mostly used.


Mr. Phillipps has already pointed out (vol. IV., p. 187) the

singular way in which the genus Poephila is divided up into

pairs ; first we have the Tong-tailed {P. acuticauda) and Parson

Finches (. P.cinda ), resembling one another in all their ways and

in the markings of their plumage, the only differences apparent^

being in the colour of the bill and feet and the length of the two

central tail-feathers. Then there are the more delicate but

equally beautiful White - eared (Z 5 . leucotis) and Masked

Grassfinches (P. personated) very closely resembling one another,

but both differing greatly from the first couple. Lastly, there

are the two forms of the Gouldian Finch (P. gotildice and P.

mirabilis), breeding freely together and identical in all but the

markings on the head, but absolutely unlike the other two

couples in every way. It seems to me very strange that all these

should be placed in the same genus.


The Tong-tailed Grassfinch inhabits the North and North¬

west of Australia.


The prevailing colour of the adult is pinkish - brown ;

upper and under tail-coverts white, with a black band across the

rump ; head delicate pearly-grey ; a patch of deep black on the



