Thirty-two Years of Aviculture.



251



were devoured by mice, which seems unlikely since much smaller

and weaker birds were untouched.


The typical Mannikins of the genus Munia I consider

the most stupid and least interesting of all finches, so far as

their habits are concerned : some of them are ready at any

time to build and lay, but are too nervous to sit steadily;

others make no attempt at breeding unless placed in a suit¬

able outdoor aviary such as I never possessed ; the songs of

most of them are contemptible, and the efforts which they make

when singing ludicrous. I have had nine Chestnut-breasted

finches and found them hardy and long-lived ; of the allied Yellow-

rumped finch I have had ten, of which one still survives as I write :

both of these birds have audible songs. Of White-headed Mannikins

I have only had two pairs ; of Black-headed, several dozens : this

was one of the three first foreign birds I ever possessed, for each

pair of which I ignorantly paid sixteen shillings and eight pence."

Since that time I have at different times purchased examples at five

and six shillings the dozen- I have had two or three pairs of the

Three-coloured Mannikins which I consider one of the prettiest of

the group.


In the present day, when there is a tendency to split up both

species and genera, it puzzles me greatly to comprehend why the

Java Sparrow and its allies have not been kept separate from the

other forms of Munia : to the eye they stand out at once as a very

distinct group; and, as a generic name ( Paclcla ) already exists, I see

no reason for ignoring it. I have had a considerable number of the

common Java Sparrow, and at one time used to breed it in its grey,

pied and white varieties in considerable numbers every year, but

now I have only a solitary specimen still living.


Of Mannikins of the genus Spermestes I have had one pair of

Magpie Mannikins, and they lived, one for four the other for six

years, a most uneventful life ; but this I found to be characteristic

of the genus. The two-coloured Mannikin was caught outside the

Natural History Museum and was brought to me by a policeman ;

whether the fact of its being taken up as a vagrant was too great a



* Perhaps I ought not to reckon them at quite that price since, in addition to

three pairs of common birds, I got the cage (a metal one) which contained them.



