C orrespondence.



137



They will find this will keep Eos and Lorius in perfect health.


I have never had Clialcopsittacus or Dasyptilus or Charmosyna, but I

see no reason why it should not succeed with them.


I have never found milk suit any parrot lexcept Macaws: but I

believe Mr. Goodfellow brought over lories on tinned milk.


I admit that the food I recommend makes them dirty birds to keep,

and I should prefer to feed them 011 seed, if it suited them.


I have no doubt that seed is the best for Blue Mountain Lories, and

if so, I do not see why it should not be best for the other species of

Trichoglossus. F. G. Dutton.



SEPOY FINCH EATING ITS YOUNG.


Sir, —My Sepoy finches ( Bird Notes, volume V., May 1906) nested

and hatched out two or three. You can judge of my horror when, passing

the aviary one morning, I saw the hen with something in its beak that

looked like a young bird and which she was deliberately pecking and

eating, evidently enjoying it.


I examined what was left of the poor little finch ; it was only a few

days out of the shell. Is not this unusual ?


Plenty of mealworms, dried [flies and ants’ egg were placed in the

aviary every morning. What would you advise as a preventive next time if

I have any luck ?


The cock birds appear rather delicate when changing colour.


C. Castur-Suoane.


I was unable to suggest a remedy for this cannibalism, which appears

in one form or another in many species. Carpodacus with its fugitive rose-

red colouring is probably more nearly related to Lbiota and Serinus than

to Pyrrhula. The call-note of C. roseus is certainly remarkably like that of

the domesticated Canary.


When I used to breed Canaries, on more than one occasion I have

known the hens to eat their young when two or three days old. Cardinalis

also has been known to brain its young and throw the bodies out of the

nest.


Many years ago an account was published in the Zoologist of a

Missel Thrush which partl\ r fed its nestlings upon the new-born bodies of

Song-Thrushes which it first picked to pieces, and Princess Croy, who bred

the Scarlet Tanager at Hainaut, Belgium, notes that the parent birds partly

fed their young upon the bodies of newly-hatched Wagtails. I have also

recorded the fact that Manyali Weavers and Pekin Nightingales both took

toll of my young Saffron-finches, though the latter more often ate the eggs

than the young.


Of course we can all suggest that insufficient insect-food is the cause

of this unnatural behaviour on the part of Finches ; but is it ? It is by no



