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Dr. A. G. Butler



examples of the Black-headed Weaver. In 1895 I purchased a male

of what I then supposed to be an ordinary Black-headed Weaver;

but, after its death on the 29th January, 1910, it was identified at

the Natural History Museum as H. capitalis, which Shelley calls

the Niger Black-headed Weaver ; it is conspicuously smaller than

the commoner species and differs in several other respects. I have

also had the Half-masked Weaver. I have had three male Baya

Weavers and two male Manyah Weavers : they built many nests,

but having no hens to help them, they never completed them by

forming the cup for the eggs or the entrance tube. I have kept two

males and one female of the brilliant Madagascar Weaver and one

male of the nearly-related Comoro Weaver; they are aggressive and

quarrelsome birds, the latter especially so.*


Next to be considered are the Starlings, which I have always

greatly delighted in on account of their intelligence and the readiness

with which many of them become tame and confiding: they include

some of the most brilliantly coloured of our feathered friends, and

are interesting as links between the Finch-like and Crow-like birds ;

their nests, both in form and location, vary as much as they do in

the whole of the two families of finches, while the cunning and

mischievous propensities of some of them are similar to those which

one finds amongst the Crows. Of the finch-like Marsh-birds I

received single examples of the Bobolink and the Bed-breasted

Marsh-bird from the Argentine Bepublic in 1893 : I had to keep

them in a smallish aviary as they were too wild and nervous for a

flight-cage; they did not appear to be spiteful birds. The Brown¬

headed Meadow-Starling, of which I have had two examples, were

certainly quite amiable towards their associates. The Yellow¬

shouldered and Flame-shouldered Marsh - Troupials, with more

slender bills, I only kept in flight-cages and therefore cannot say

how they might behave if associated with smaller birds ; I had two

males of the former and one of the latter species, and should judge,

from the age to which the last-mentioned attained, that if correctly

fed and treated, both would be examples of longevity. I found a



*On April 7th, 1914, Mr. Silver brought me a male out of colour of what

he understood to be a Comoro Weaver, but it has since proved to be a Madagascar

Weaver.



