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beaten egg in the place of water for drinking. She is now in a

healthy moult, and is living on a mixture of millet and canary

seed.


The extreme rarity of the bird seems to be due to the

difficulty of getting it through the journey of a thousand and

odd miles to the coast, across a country devoid of roads. With

my two birds were brought down two others, a pair, and these

were “deposited” in the Adelaide Zoo by the gentleman, an

Australian explorer, who had brought them from the interior.

Of this pair the cock bird, like my own, has since died, but

fortunately not before a pair of young ones had been hatched,

and I believe these are now doing well in the Gardens. If they

are for sale upon the return visit to Australia of the friend who

gives me the information, they will be bought for me, so I may

yet have another pair.


In view of the admirable drawing by Mr. Smit, a repro¬

duction of which appears in this number, it is quite unnecessary

for me to describe the plumage of this beautiful bird, especially

as, although even a painting must fail to do justice to the delicate

gradations of colour to be found in the living specimen, a

written description would, to a still greater extent, fall short of

adequately expressing those wonderful combinations of rose-

,colour, grey, green, and blue.



THE BLACK LARK.


Melanocorypha yeltoniensis.


By Reginald Phillipps.


Except in the London Zoological Gardens, I have never

seen or heard of this species being kept in confinement; and in

my limited library, the only accounts of it that I can find are in

the Royal Natural History and in the Catalogue of Birds, British

Museum, Vol. XIII.; and I have kept only one pair. It must be

borne in mind, therefore, that my observations have been based

solely upon these two birds, living under unnatural conditions,

and fed, while breeding, almost entirely upon mealworms.


On the 19th February, 1898, I obtained a pair of Black

Larks. They were so weak from having been fed only on seed

that for a time I despaired of saving the male. As soon as they

were strong enough, they were placed in the garden, where they

have been from that time to this,—during the winter with the

free run of the whole aviary, but during the rest of the year shut

off in the reserved portion, which is so crowded with trees and



