294



Mr. Frank Finn,



Scarlet quills to under tail-coverts, green feathering on secon¬

daries, etc. Size of a large common Quail (circa).


17th of July. Looked in the nesting box, and found two out of

the three that I left, to be larger than the hand-reared one.


The largest was a fine bird, which immediately on being

released, flew as strongly as its parents, and would evidently

have left the nest before had the box not been a very deep one,

and had the parent birds not gnawed away all the perches which

had been placed inside to enable the young to get out.


This bird ate some seed the same day that it was put out.



AVICULTURE at the zoo.


By Frank Finn.


The most important event in breeding to be recorded is the

hatching of four young Willow-Grouse in the end compartment

—that nearest the Reptile house—of the Southern Pheasantry.

Two of them have died, but the survivors are now as large as

quails, and feathered all except the head.


A pair of Indian Bank Mynahs (Acridotheres ginginianus )

have a young one in a box in the Western Aviary; this is not

only a record, so far as I am aware, for the breeding of this

species in this country, but is of especial interest; first, because

this bird naturally breeds in banks and burrows out its owu

nest-liole, like a sand-martin ; and secondly, because the young

one was hatched about a fortnight before the keepers found it

out, and so the old ones had no live food to feed it with at first.


The Pectoral Rails in the paddocks outside the Apes’

House have another brood ; Mr. Seth-Smith, I am glad to say,

promises to give us a full account later on. The young Black

Tanager is fully fledged and independent now ; it is much paler

and duller brown than the lieu.


Among recent additions, a very important one, new to the

collection, is to be noted :—


Shining Flycatcher (Phaenopepia nitens). This species is

referred by American ornithologists to the Waxwings ( Ampelidce );

it is, says Cones in his key to North American Birds, “ a bird of



