on Breeding of the Blue • breasted Waxbill. 343


planted this spring, which had died before the leaf-buds had

unfolded; and hopping about the bare limbs of this tree was a

little fair-complexioned drab-coloured bird, whose short square

tail and awkward movements under my gaze proclaimed its

juvenility :—it was the first aviary-bred Bhie-breasted Waxbill!


As far as I was able to examine it, when viewed sideways,

not a speck of blue was to be seen except a little on the cheeks ;

when seen from the front, the throat and centre of the chest

were blue, but this colour did not extend far downwards to¬

wards the abdomen. The tail seemed to be darkish washed with

blue. Beak black or blackish. It was about July 23 that this

fledgeling seemed to be rapidly assuming the plumage of the

“adult.” It soon became much more blue; but the beak was

still black and the abdomen pale pinkish drab. As I write, this

fledgling, or bird of the year, a perfect bird, may still be dis¬

tinguished from the adults by its smaller size, by the shade of

blue being less deep, by its darker tail, and by its exhibiting

generally considerably more of the drab-brown, which too is of a

lighter shade. I do not find that, at any age, the legs and feet

are black as stated in Stark’s work ; they are of a slightly less

pale brown than in the adults—that is all.


And so here, as in the days of old, it was not the beautiful

Rachel who bore off the first prize but the despised Leah.


And now we must take up the story of the two Rakes.


In the aviary of mixed birds where we left them, no trees

can exist because of the rather large flock of Black-cheeked

Lovebirds. These irrepressible creatures do not, with me at any

rate, injure the other inmates of the aviary, but they are all over

the place, nothing restrains them, and they are a great hindrance

to the breeding of other species ; and for the latter I could do

little more in the spring than put up nesting-boxes, nail pieces

of wood across the entrance in the hopes of keeping the large

birds out, and hide them away as best I could.


The first nest of the Rakes, although not in a box, was in

a fairly safe place; but there were no signs of young, so I turned

the sitting-bird off and took the two eggs, each of which con¬

tained a dead chick.


During a temporary change in the direction of the wind.



