On Breeding Turnix nigricollis in German Bird-rooms. 195


harsh croaks. The Peregrine always “ checked” when about a

foot from the Raven, and with incredible speed again “ mounted

to his pitch” and repeated the performance. This was done

over and over again, and as the Peregrine never touched a feather

of the Raven’s, the object was apparently to drive him away

from the vicinity of his nest. As however the performance took

place before or above the very cliff on which the Ravens’ nest

was placed, I think that either the Peregrines and Ravens were

nesting in close proximity, or that these aerial gambols were not

performed through any unfriendly spirit.”



ON BREEDING TURNIX NIGRICOLLIS IN


GERMAN BIRD-ROOMS.


By Arthur G. Butler, Ph.D., F.E.S., F.Z.S., etc.


In 1903 our Editor had the great satisfaction of breeding

Turnix ianki in his aviaries, and thereby was enabled to throw

considerable light upon the life-history of the Hemipodes.


Recently, while looking through Dr. Karl Russ’ “ Weich-

futterfresser,” forming the second but last published volume of

his large work—“ Die fremdlandischen Stubeuvogel,” I came

across very full accounts of the breeding of two species of

Turnix in Germany— T. nigricollis and T. lepurana ; and, as I

felt sure that a perusal of these accounts would be of considerable

interest to English students, I consulted with our Editor,

who expressed a desire that they should be detailed in our

Magazine. *


Dr. Russ’ works are by no means the easiest of German

writings to translate ; not only because he uses words not to be

found in most dictionaries, but is addicted to abbreviations and

word-clippings. I believe I have elsewhere pointed out with

what difficulty I discovered (no German to whom I applied could

tell me) that the word spiizsat, often used in his books, was an

abbreviation of spitzsaat, and stood for canary-seed : well, that

is only one word, though unhappily not ke only one. Most



I propose to reserve the account of T. lepurana for a later paper.



