298 Nesting of Pelzeln's Saffron Finch.


known, with its huffish under surface suffused with pale dusky

ashy on the breast; but my hen which survived for over three

years is altogether darker, has the sides of the head, throat and

breast suffused with dull blue, which passes imperceptibly into

the dull ochraceous brownish or muddy clay-colour of the re¬

mainder of the under surface.


I believe the second type of male is well known to scient¬

ists, but the female I had not previously heard of, and it occurred

to me that it might represent one of those instance of gradually

acquired melanism which one meets with from time to time in

very vigorous individuals of a species when they attain to an

unusual age : certainly a life which can hardly have exceeded

four years does not strike one as very venerable, but the Pintailed

Nonpareil may be naturally short-lived ; the introduction of blue

on the sides of the head, throat, and breast, might be acquired as

an approach to the male colouring, if the bird suffered from

atrophy of the functional ovary, but then one would have expect¬

ed to find the forehead also washed with, blue and the abdomen

with scarlet.


I believe that, in the case of the Zebra-finch, about three

years would represent the natural life, though in captivity I have

kept these birds for seven or eight years ; in the latter case they

always deepen in colour, though I have seen no such strikingly

melauistic forms in that species as the male Gouldian Finch

which I described in the Ibis for 1903, or the female Pintailed

Nonpareil described above.



NESTING OF PELZELN’S SAFFRON FINCH.


Sycalis pelzelni.


By W. E. Teschemakek, B.A.


This species differs rather markedly from Sycalis flaveola.

It is only about two-thirds of the size of the latter, and the

female, instead of closely resembling the male, is grey in colour

with darker striations, the only yellow she shows being the

narrow margins of the flight feathers. I had a little difficulty in

identifying my birds because this species is described in Dr.

Butler’s “Foreign Finches” as “very similar to the common



