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dealers always have a large stock about June; the females are very rare

and probably few of our Members have ever seen a genuine live one.


I was fortunate enough to secure three hens last autumn, and I was

able to winter them all right; and this spring I turned them out in two of

my big outdoor aviaries, one pair in each. The reason for this is that

Nonpareil cocks are so abominably combative that if two were put together

one would soon have to yield up the ghost. As it was, for some days, the

two cocks spent most of the day trying to get at each other through the

dividing wires of their aviaries.


I saw once that someone asked if Nonpareils changed colour. They

do, most undoubtedly ; in winter the cock is quite a sober looking gentle¬

man, and only gets his splendid livery as summer draws on. Another

thing—they take about three years before they come into full colour, (b)


The hen Nonpareil is a very sober little lady ; a sort of olive green

on top and very pale buff below.


She has not the slightest suspicion of blue about her, and if she has

(though it sounds a bit Irish) she is an undoubted young cock. Nearly all

the so-called hens are young cocks. I once looked carefully through

about sixty so called hens one by one, and out of the whole lot, only two

were genuine hens.


I suspeft that very few people keep Nonpareils for any length of

time, as they are, like our own Chaffinch, more than half insectivorous, and

a seed diet soon leads to wasting away or consumption.


The cock has a pretty little song and he is very fond of sitting on the

top of a bush and giving out his performance. I often hear mine singing

quite late at night when it is almost dark.


My birds built their nest in a box tree, quite low down, and it was a

very pretty affair, made externally of fine hay and grass and lined inside with

fine roots and horsehair. The hen laid three eggs and sat splendidly, she did

not seem to mind my looking at her one bit. The eggs are sea green in

colour and heavily blotched with sienna brown on the big end. They are

in fact somewhat like a small Dhyal’s egg. Two young were hatched and

one egg was clear and I have it now. At first the young were covered

with very dark fluff, like young Bullfinches.


So far as I could see the hen did most of the feeding, at any rate the

cock did not let me see him stoop to domestic duties, though I dare say he

did some. Whenever I went in to feed he perched himself on a high twig,

as if to say : “ Now what are you up to ? ” The hen soon got to know that

my visits meant food for the babies, and she was always ready for me after

a few days. When the young are being fed their call-note is something

like si, si, si.


The excreta are carried out to a distance and dropped.


The young grew grandly and at the end of about thirteen days left

the nest, July 7th. The}' are funny little grey birds with black beaks and

stumpy little tails.


I saw them yesterday, July 22nd, and the tails were more presentable,

and they fly very decently, and very proud do the parents seem of them.



(6). I have had a good many of these birds, but my males never put on a different

plumage for the winter ; moreover, the numbers exhibited at our Shows are always

recognizable as typical, whether exhibited in winter or summer. I have had two hens,

one of which is still living. I purchased her some four or five years ago in nestling plum¬

age.—A. G. B.



