196 Coirespondence.


LORIES, LOVEBIRDS AND PARROT FINCHES.


Sir, —Would you mind telling me if you think a pair of Red Lories

ill an aviary iSft. square would interfere with three pairs of Black-cheeked

Love-birds? I find the latter very dangerous with small birds. They will

seize them by the leg and hold them struggling head downwards till they

bite their leg off.


My old pair of Parrot-finches that hatched fifteen young ones last

season have now been sitting for a week on five more eggs. These are the

o?ily birds that I have as yet allowed to start breeding.


March 15, 1909. W. R. Tkmppk.


[To introduce a pair of Lories into an aviarv where Lovebirds are

kept would seem to be a somewhat dangerous proceeding, though of course

they might agree.


Lovebirds cannot be trusted with the small Finches.-— Ed.]


THE BLACK-WINGED HANGNEST.


Sir, —I shall be glad to know whether any of your members can tell

me whether the Black-winged Hangnest is a common species in captivity?

I bought a Hangnest a few weeks ago which was new to me (though this is

not saying much, as I know little or nothing about them) and was at first

unable to identify it.


Mr. Meade-Waldo, however, most kindly made out that it was Icterus

giraudi, the Black-winged Hangnest. The following is a description of the

bird. Bright-yellow, more or less tinged with orange; front and sides of

the head, throat down to the middle of the breast, and wings and tail black.

The dealer I purchased it from assured me it was a seldom imported species

and I certainly do not think I have seen one before.


Keswick Hall, Norwich. Gkrat„d H. Gurney.


Unless I. giraudi has been received quite recently by the London

Zoological Society it is quite unknown as a cage-bird in Europe. We get

few Central American birds and it is only of late years that, owing to the

energy of one or two aviculturists, the birds of Venezuela have been brought

prominently to the notice of the aviculturists of this countiy.


A. G. Butekr.


THE WATER RAIL IN HAMPSHIRE.


Sir, —As you have admitted some correspondence about Water Rails

in Kent I wondered whether it might be of interest to add something about

them in Hampshire, written from a district that probably holds as many

Water Rails as any area of equal size in England. Mile upon mile of reed-

fringed streams and water-meadows, of alder, osier, and quaking beds of

reeds, and of water-tangle generally, make the valley of the Test a paradise

for birds that are essentially liiders in swamps and streams.


The pursuit of natural history, or the claims of fishing or of shooting,

take me to the river lauds at all seasons of the year ; so I may almost be said to



