188



Mr. Douglas R. Urwick,



would I have done so had not my wife met me with the news that

she had found in another part of the Show a cage of fourteen Bull¬

finches and a “ Sunset ” finch. The latter I persuaded its owner to

sell, I never knew its right name, it was a gorgeous Weaver of sorts,

but as Sunset finch it was known during the several years it lived

with me.


The Bullfinches I greeted as old friends. I had loved them in

England, but had never seen them in Portugal, though I had searched

for them diligently in places where I had heard they were to be

found. I bought the lot.


Afterwards I was generally in correspondence with my Lisbon

friend. He had the weirdest names for his birds, and it was pure

guesswork buying from him ; he used to call them after their colour

usually, or some habit they had. Once he wrote me he had some

very nice Botafogos (botar = to throw, fogo = fire), Peitos Celestes

(Eng. “ Celestial breasts”) and Ratinhos (Eng. “little mice”), so I

chanced a few and received a cage full of Avadavats, Blue-breasted

Waxbills and Bronze-wing Mannikins, as usual, beautifully packed,

and minute instructions given to the guard for the long weary

railway journey from Lisbon to Oporto.


He could get no Zebra Finches, so I got some from England

and exchanged numbers of young with him ; from England, too, I

had the usual Gouldians, Grassfinches (Long-tailed and Masked), etc.


Considering the unsuitability and crowded condition of my

aviary I was not so unsuccessful as I expected, though only the

commoner birds actually reared young to maturity; Red - faced

Lovebirds failed altogether, and though the Blue-breasted Waxbills

hatched brood after brood, never a bird lived to leave the nest.

Grassfinches, on the other hand, were uniformly successful.


My various Weavers never got beyond their wonderful nests,

nor was I successful with Nonpareil or Indigo Buntings; the Non¬

pareil hens I bought turned out to be young cocks (I suppose it is

easy to tell the difference, but I knew little of this species ?) whilst

my only Indigo hen was too busy having fits to think of nesting ;

she would writhe in the most horrible contortions for ten minutes

and then stiffen out and apparently die, only to recover suddenly and

rush to the seed tray. Unlike her mate, she would not touch



