296



Correspondence.



The following reply has been sent to Air. Soames : —


Bullfinches eat the fruit-buds of cherry, plum, apple, pear, gooseberry and

currant without troubling as to whether they contain maggots or not ; they do

not eat leaf buds, seeming to prefer the stouter and more succulent fruit-buds.

Possibly this indiscriminate pruning may strengthen the trees, but it is a

source of great irritation to the fruit-grower.


In addition no doubt these birds eat many seeds of noxious weeds, as well

as green fly, small caterpillars and, in the autumn, berries ; they will possibly

eat wireworms in a wild state when they get a chance to do so, as it is well-

known that they and their allies like mealworms when captive.


I never heard of a Magpie Mannikin replacing its white feathers by

black, but the Java Sparrow, after a fight in which the white face patches have

been pulled out replaces them by black ; this however only happens in the breed¬

ing season when fighting is prevalent amongst many birds (I had one instance in

my own aviaries). Why white feathers should be replaced by black during the

winter I don’t understand. ' A. G. BUTLER.



DESTRUCTIVE WARFARE AMONG PARROTS.


SIB,—In the interesting article by Lord Tavistock in the April, 1915,

number of the Avicultural Magazine, the question is asked whether this des¬

tructive warfare goes on among parrots in Australia. Personally, in all my

wanderings in this country, I have never seen a sample of it. The birds here

have ample room, far more than they would have at Woburn Abbey, also hollows

in trees are very much more plentiful than in the European trees, and therefore

I do not think they would ever have to fight for the possession of a nesting-hole.

Nesting parrots have their difficulties, but I do not think that is one of them.


D. Le Souef,


Director of Royal Zoological Society of Victoria.



SlE,—There has been a scandal in my aviary. A pair of Red-faced Love¬

birds were a most loving couple (like all cock Lovebirds he was rather henpecked,

but that they seem to expect). They were never more than a foot or so apart

and generally squeezed tight against each other—an exemplary pair. Then I

introduced a yellow hen Budgerigar because I had an odd cock one, but he died

the next day I think, still there were others and she reared a family in which

the Lovebird took a great interest, and when they left the nest he forsook his

wife and took up with the yellow lady, and now he spends all the day gazing into

the hole in her cocoa-nut, keeping strict guard and particularly savage with his

wife if she comes near, yet oddly enough they sleep huddled together at night in

the old way. There are young birds in the nest I think and I am anxious to see

the result, though I fear I did not remove the other Budgerigars soon enough.

Has a cross ever been reared I wonder ? I am told Red-faced Lovebirds will not

breed in outdoor aviaries ; is it true ? A. A. THOM.



