328 The two Nonpareils.


well one minute and being dead half an hour later that has so far

baffled research.


As I found it did not live any better in Calcutta than here, a

warm climate and paddy-rice are not sufficient to keep it alive ; in

fact, I may here remark that, according to my Indian experience,

if a creature is hard to keep here it is equally hard to keep in its

own country. Delicacy depends more on timidity or some other

moral character, or on an unadaptable digestion, than on climate,

though of course the quick change of climate undergone during

importation does not make matters at all easier for creatures

whose health is already below par by reason of close confine¬

ment, even if not actually recently captured. I should advise

anyone who is trying to keep Pintail Nonpareils to endeavour

to supply as great a variety of food as they can be got to take,

in the hope of hitting on the essential thing. If they do uot

take to soft food, fruit, insects, or what not, such a bird as a Pekin

Robin confined with them, or in a separate compartment with a

wire partition, may teach them the trick, as bird gastronomy is

largely a matter of imitation. Above all, let us uot have people

saying that we must not try to keep the bird, because it is cruel;

the creature is a pest at home, which would be killed if not

exported, and nothing is easier or more common now-a-days than

the trotting out of some lofty motive like humanitariauism to

excuse the laziness and want of resource which are such a

characteristic of over-civilized communities.


It is not surprising that the Pintailed Nonpariel has not

bred here, though, according to Dr. Butler, it bred in Germany

as long ago as 1886 ; the nest is evidently of the domed type

usual in the Mannikin group, as it is described as thick-walled

and with wide cavity and narrow entrance-hole.


I11 conclusion, I may here remark on the curious fact that

this common bird is hard to keep and breed, while the nearly

allied but rare Parrot-fincli is an easy subject. I have so often

noticed this in pairs of allies that I think there must be more

than a coincidence in it; and two explanations suggest them¬

selves. One is that the rare bird finds the conditions of captivity

more suitable to it than those offered by nature ; the other is that

when a bird is dear people will take a lot of trouble over it,



