Mr. Frank Finn,



326



The hen Nonpareil never was common in the trade ; her

colour is a subdued green above and pale buff below ; but many

birds thus coloured are liable to turn out to be young cocks.

Some hens, however, were recently on sale at Green’s in Covent

Garden for months ; they showed no signs of being other than

females, and I was surprised that they did not find purchasers.

Although Nonpareils have frequently been bred on the Conti¬

nent, few people seem to have tried them here, though the Rev.

C. D. Farrar bred them in 1899 (A vie. Mag., Ser. I. v., p. 165,)

The young, he says, were reared entirely on insect food ; but

according to Keulemans (A Natural History of Cage Birds, 1871)

they can be reared in a canary breeding-cage with egg-food and

sugared sop by way of soft food ! However they feed them.

Continental fanciers seem to consider them easy subjects for

breeding, judging from what Russ says (Handbucli fur Vogel-

liebhaber, as quoted by Dr. Butler in Foreign Finches in Cap¬

tivity) about their breeding regularly two or three times a year,

and the only objection to breeding them being the difficulty of

distinguishing the young cocks. The full plumage is not attained

till the bird is three years old — an unusually long time for a

passerine bird. The nest is made in a bush or open basket, and

the eggs are spotted with brown. One great drawback to this

species is the fact that the cock by degrees loses its beautiful

red tints and assumes yellow instead, though under conditions

as natural as possible for an inhabitant of the warm parts of

North America — a sunny outdoor aviary—the colour is said to

be retained. Some difference of opinion exists as to whether

Nonpareils have an undress plumage, going into hen feather in

the winter ; but the general verdict is that they do not, the

replacement of red by yellow being permanent and due to un¬

favourable conditions, while the blue of the head remains.


At the same time, it is possible for a bird to assume, in

captivity, a seasonal change unknown in the wild state ; it is

well known that the Scarlet Ibis (Eudocimus ruber) of America

becomes very pale in captivity and remains so. Yet, of our

breeding specimens in the Calcutta Zoo in my time, the hens

were always salmon-colour, while the old cock had his salmon

plumage enhanced by stains of scarlet in the breeding season



