The Blue Chaffinch of Teneriffe.



195



wood out of her imaginary hollow tree. I have made one in¬

effectual attempt to induce this bird to pair off and propose to

repeat the experiment again. A little Red-collared Amazon (C.

colla?ia ) I bought in Jamaica was able to say a word or two and

made an affectionate pet. The narration of its tragic fate shall

conclude these somewhat disjointed notes from an aviary.


In addition to birds, I keep certain wild mammals and snakes,

and in a heated out-house where the snakes lived were placed

one winter the Jamaican Amazon and a Grey Parrot. Mean¬

while a slender Python, scarcely tour feet long, escaped from its

case and crept beneath a pile of heavy boxes, and as the house

was to be cleaned out within a week I postponed until then any

effort to recover so apparently harmless a creature. But next

-day the Grey Parrot was found dead in its cage, and so, a day or

two later, was my little collaria. The latter obviously had been

constricted and an ineffectual attempt had been made to swallow

him. The wings had proved to be too large a morsel for the

Python who, had he succeeded in engulfing his victim, would

have been caught in a trap, for he would have been far too stout

to crawl back through the cage bars with the bird inside him.

The Grey Parrot was found to have suffered from a diseased

heart, but I always think her death was accelerated by shock at

the sight of the snake.



THE BLUE CHAFFINCH OF TENERIFFE.


Fringilla teydca.


By Hubert D. Asteey.


In February, when staying near Puerto Orotava, I paid a

call on Senor Ramon Gomez, the chemist, and found that he had

half-a-dozen living specimens of the Teydean Chaffinch, which

he told me he had caught as young birds two summers ago

amongst the Pine Forests of the Island, in the neighbourhood

of the famous Peak of Teneriffe [El Teide], and I carried back

two pairs.


It is supposed that this species is only to be found 011

Teneriffe, and in limited, as well as decreasing, numbers in the



