336



Miss E. E. West,



the rain poured through the roof of my bird room where there

happened to be some defect. One bird succumbed at once and

the verdict was pneumonia, the other I took into the house and

nursed up and then it died of a cancerous growth on the liver.

My six remaining pets lived and throve happily all that winter

in their big cage, and as soon as the bright summer weather came

last year I let them out in the room among a mixed collection of

Waxbills and small finches. I think I can answer for it that

they spent a most happy summer, flying about catching any

little insects they could find and tapping off the plaster from

the walls, partly I suppose for fun, for they were playful little

things, and partly no doubt in the search for live food. They

were a great delight to their owner and friends and we used

to supply them with fresh ants’ eggs dug up with the ants,

and also with earwigs from the garden. Blighted fruit tree or

rose leaves also were warmly welcomed, they would clean a

leaf covered with black aphis as nicely as if it had been washed

with soap and water. I should think their ‘Australian’ name

of ‘ Blight Bird ’ is most appropriate. I wish I could send 3rou

a picture of these little feathered darlings—by this time all in

magnificent feather, and as clean and bright as many plunges in

the water daily could make them—all standing on tiptoe round

a bag of sponge cake or crowding together round the same

•cherry. We used to talk of a photo for the Magazine, but I was

told that it was not possible as the room is not sufficiently

light.


As Autumn merged into Winter my troubles with these

favourite little ones began—they suddenly took to being

•disagreeable to each other for no apparent reason, and at last

five seemed to have arranged together to chase one which I

would find on the floor exhausted, so I put it in a cage, and then

■one turned master and drove all the others about, and my efforts

to secure him always seemed to end in caging the wrong bird.

Finally I did secure him and put him in the cage with one other

as companion, leaving four free, and they got on fairly well for a

time. Then they all took to having fits, which I now think were

caused chiefly by the dried insects in the food I was then giving.

Just after Christmas one of the finest of the birds dropped

suddenl) r dead, and on the same morning they nearE all had fits.



