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Mr. E. J. Brook,



their aviary. Two birds died soon after arrival, but nine out of

this lot are still living. The birds were so bare of feathers that it

was difficult to pick out the species at first, and, unfortunately they

nearly all turned out to be hens, but there were two males of C.

zeylonica, two males and one female of C. asiaticus, and the rest

were females of Zeylonica.


These birds all lived fairly peacefully together in an aviary,

12ft. by 7ft., furnished with living bushes and orange trees, till this

spring, when the strongest male Purple bird nearly killed the other

male. A few minutes’ observation was sufficient to show that I had

a pair of Sunbirds wishing to nest, but what was to he done with

the others ? Risk or no risk, the mated pair must have the aviary

to themselves, so the rest were promptly turned into another com¬

partment among a mixed lot, composed of Sugarbirds, Hanging

Parrakeets, &c., where they have done very well indeed. The

mated pair of Purples soon set about looking for a suitable site for

their nest. The horizontal part of a long spray from an orange tree

was chosen, and to this the hen tried to fix some pieces of moss, but

seemed to find the bark too smooth to get a foundation. Noticing

her difficulty I twisted a little sheep’s wool round the branch, and

to this foundation she wove a considerable mass of wool and moss,

but not finding it to her liking she pulled it all to pieces again. This

she repeated three times. I then cut a small piece from the bough

of a dead spruce fir and fastened it to the place the hen wanted to

build from. Nest-building now began in earnest, and soon a mass

of sheep’s wool, looking like a large cobweb, was woven in and out

of the small twigs of the spray of spruce. To this web was woven

an untidy mass of wool and moss that hung down about six inches,

the end of w 7 hich was thick and bulbous and into which the true

nest was presently built.


At this stage I noticed that the hen was restless and again

threatened to undo her work. Seeing this and realising that if I

did not help in some way there was every chance of no nest at all.

I got some coir thatching cord, tied three lengths of about six inches

each to the branch, and arranged them in such a way that they

hung down with the mass of wool, touching it at three different

places. It was most interesting to see how the hen immediately



