on some old Friends.



229



her poor mate who was, and is, crippled in one wing, lived a

solitary life in the midst of a crowd, till last summer I got him

another hen. She was just like the original one at first, but

latterly she has changed so much that I begin to wonder whether

“she” is really a hen after all.


These birds must surely take a long time to mature, for

this one had been with me for many months before any change

was noticed. Now she has developed the white ring round the

eye and the white patch under the bill, which I had believed

characteristic only of the male, and her markings are now very

much more distinct than at first, though still not as dark and

clear as the mate’s. I have seen a good many of these birds at

Shows, but never one as handsome as my old cock, and I con¬

clude that they must either be immature birds or hens. I wish

someone would enlighten me. I may add that my two are quite

indifferent to each other, partly perhaps because the cock cannot

fly properly and keeps to the floor of the aviary, while the hen is

active and flies quite well. They spend the summer out of doors

and love to run about in the grass almost like tiny Quails.


I have a charming pair of Dufresne’s Waxbills which have

been with me for just two years. They are most lovely little

birds, always happy and well, active in their habits and most

amiable, but they utterly refuse to nest either indoors or out. I

kept them in during the first part of the summer of 1906, hoping

that an aviary entirely to themselves might be an inducement,

but they looked quite lost in it, and as nearly depressed as it is

possible for a Dufresne to be, so I turned them out with the

others into the garden aviary, where they spent a blissful summer

flitting from branch to branch, and basking in the sunshine,

never far apart, for they are a devoted couple. I still hope that

they may win a medal, for several pairs of my birds have been

with me a very longtime before attempting to nest, notably some

Masked Grassfinches, which reared two young ones last year, and

the Pileated Finches before mentioned.


Virginian Nightingales are very showy and hardy pets,

and mine have been out all this winter, and the worse the day

the more persistently do they remain in the open flight which is

really a wired-in flower border. This is not the case with the



