Nesting of Purple Sunbirds in Gaptivitiy. 327



estuary of the Teig'n in that state of freedom for which the Creator

created them, and from which I had ruthlessly snatched them, with

no better excuse than the fact that I had intei’ested myself in the

species.


General Remarks. Recent experience has tended to

support the conjecture, which I put forward in the above mentioned

article, that the reason that this species does not nest in this

country, is that its diet, and, in particular, the diet of the young,

consists almost entirely of winged insects ; although the Germans

call it “ Weisse Bachstelze ” (White Brook-leg), we may note that

it has not the same partiality for water and water-insects as its

first cousin, the Pied Wagtail, and is often found breeding in dry

districts, far from pond or stream. We also note incidentally that,

although we have been recently told that “ Blackstart must mean

Blacktail,” the abbreviation which those naughty German

aviculturists have introduced (“ Weisse Stelze ”) obviously does not

mean “ White-leg.” Lastly let us note that the White Wagtail is

the most difficult of the European Wagtails to domesticate: it is

essentially a wild creature—a creature of the wild, nesting on some

barren mountain side, by some remote Icelandic tarn, or on some

lonely beach lapped by a northern sea.


P.S.—I have many photographs of the nesting of this species

but the one selected, will, I hope, convey a suggestion to our friends,

the ornithologists, that it is not necessary to destroy life in order to

study the plumage of a bird, or to obtain a record of the same. My

assistant might with great advantage have made better use of his

nail-brush !



NESTING OF PURPLE SUNBIRDS

IN CAPTIVITY.


By E. J. Brook.


Just over two years ago I purchased from a London dealer

wdiat was admitted to be a job lot of Sunbirds. There were four¬

teen of them, and there were hardly feathers enough on the lot to

decently clothe four birds, at least that is what they looked like.

None could fly and so branches had to be placed on the floor of



