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on Zosterops going to Nest in Captivity.


I sent the dead one for examination, and the verdict was apoplexy.

I saved the others for a time by picking them np and holding

them in my hand and putting water on their heads—but soon

another one died after constant fits. Of the remaining four

I left two free and caged two.


I now fed them almost entirely on sponge cake and

Roman’s Ants’ Eggs damped, and of course as much fruit as

they liked to eat, but no live insects were to be obtained excepting

an occasional spider. We went on for a long time without

any more fits, but one morning one of the caged birds had a very

bad attack and, as it refused to get better, I at last put it in a very

small cage and set it out of doors, where I left it in spite of its

being a bitterly cold frosty morning. It seemed rather a desper¬

ate remedy but I thought it could but die anyway. The fits

ceased but the poor little patient seemed dying of exhaustion so

I took him in my hand and carried him indoors, and after giving

him a sip of whiskey and water popped him into a silk bag where

he could not hurt himself, and after hanging up the bag left him

to die in peace.


After about an hour I went to take a sorrowful peep at

his dead body, as I expected, when out he flew quite strongly

and is now the only one of my much cherished Zosterops who

survives to tell the tale, and a very creditable specimen he is at

the present moment.


Now readers will wonder what all this has to do with the

nesting of Zosterops, but the concluding paragraph will explain.

The two little birds left free in the bird-room proved to be a pair,

and I was much interested this Spring in seeing them carrying

about little pieces of cotton from the fringe of a table cloth, and

any other little pieces they could find, but did not give them

credit for serious thoughts of a nest.


While I was away from home in May the hen gave con¬

siderable anxiety by looking puffy and ill ; she got better but

took to making mysterious disappearances. She was watched,

and was found to retire to a little wire cage on the wall, in which

there happened to be a seed pan, and in this pan was found a

beautiful little pale blue egg. This w r as the second or third week

in May. On my return I gave the birds some hay to amuse



