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Correspondence.



CORRESPONDENCE, NOTES, ETC.


THE MOCKING BIRD.


Sir,—I have kept Mocking Birds (North American) but have never

heard them mimic any sound the)' could hear. They throve well in an

aviary high enough to allow them to tumble in the air. I noticed one

curious fact with regard to their eyes, which varied in shade of colour,

some having dark brown eyes, others light vellow-grey. The birds with

the light coloured eyes were very ill-tempered and pugnacious and spiteful,

but not those with the dark eyes. It was easy to make friends with these,

but I never trusted the others. I have observed this with other birds also,

and have often wondered if it is the rule or the exception, and if others

have noticed it. My Mocking Birds warbled and ‘ chipped ’ but I was

disappointed in their vocal powers. They were healthy enough and in

very good plumage. They had a grass plot to peck about on and a tree to

sit in. They loved bathing, and their soft grey and white plumage looked

exquisitely lovely after the toilet. I cannot say they were either especially

clever or capable of attachment. Probably they are both in their wild

state. Katharine Currey.


THE WEDGE-TAILED GREEN PIGEON.


Sir,—T he last two numbers of the Magazine have just followed me

home from India, so that the following remarks are somewhat belated.


Mr. Dodsworth’s interesting article on Sphenocercus sphenurus calls

for several remarks. In the first place, I should say that Mr. Dodsworth is

quite correct in assuming that the description of his cage-bird and that of

Blyth’s l/mago cantillans is merely that of the young bird. The Wedge¬

tailed Green Pigeon takes at least two years and perhaps three to attain liis

full plumage, and this I have found to be the case with all the members of

the Treronince I have kept in captivity.


My birds of all species were very greedy feeders in captivity, eating

freely all grain, fruit and much green stuff also, as well as white ants or

termites. These they captured on the ground, running after them with

great speed as they fell after flight. All my birds also drank freely, settling

either on the ground or on the edge of the pan for this purpose.


I have seen wild birds drinking also, sometimes alighting on sand or

shingle alongside streams for this purpose, but more often clambering

down the cane brakes—in which they were settling down for the night—

until they could bend over and reach the water.


I have had many in confinement and can endorse all that Mr. Barnby

Smith says in his article on Satyra Tragopan in our April number. The

nuptial displays of Blyth’s Tragopan are just as wonderful as those of the

Satyra, but when my birds were fully breeding the horns were always more

or less inflated and visible, though erected and fully inflated oidy during

the nuptial displays. E. C. Stuart Baker.



