Longevity in Captivity.



367



LONGEVITY IN CAPTIVITY


AND DEATHS OF OLD FRIENDS.


By A. G. Butler, Ph.D.


In an article which I published in our Magazine in April,

1910, I expressed my conviction that birds when properly looked

after live longer in captivity than when free, and I think the evidence

which I brought forward in that article, and one which appeared a

year later, fully justified that conviction.


Since April, 1911, I have added very few birds to my collec¬

tion and some of my dear old friends have departed this life, so that

my present series consists almost entirely of birds which, like my¬

self, might be generally regarded as in the sere and yellow leaf; but

who, to all appearance, are still as active and feel as young as their

master.


1 think I cannot do better than frame this article upon the

pattern of the two previous ones, and therefore I will begin with the


Grey-winged Blackbird : * still in excellent health and

plumage after eleven years : the rascal slipped out of his aviary (as

I stooped in the doorway to change his food) a few weeks ago, and

I had to fetch a net and threaten to catch him with it before he

would return to his quarters.


The Shama, after more than nine years in my possession, is

in admirable condition.


My female South African Mountain Chat continues in

perfect health, but rather annoys me by dropping charmingly coloured

eggs to destruction from the perch every spring ; they are not unlike

small models of those often laid by the European Blackbird. By

the way, my old colleague Mr. W. R. O. Grant seems to think that

eggs laid in captivity must necessarily be abnormal: some years ago

I gave an egg of Petronia clentata to the British Museum collection,

the eggs of that species not being previously represented in the series.

In the recently published fifth volume of the Catalogue of Birds’

eggs I note the following remarks :—“ The only egg of the Lesser



* My English Blackbird is still perfect in health and plumage after nearly

eight and a half years.



