390



Mr. Hugh Wormald,



clamouring' for food, and settle on anything that came handy, my

moustache, pipe, nose, coat, etc. They did not begin to pick up for

themselves until I had had them for about ten days, when they were

no more trouble. They nearly died on the fourth day, I presume

the change of diet disagreed. At this time their tails were about

two inches long and growing fast, but the two days on which they

were sick affected the growth, causing the quill to be very thin, at

least the quarter inch or so of quill which developed during two days,

so that when the tails were full-grown they both had a kink about

2i inches from the tip, which spoilt their appearance.


When I had had them for about six weeks one of them got

out of his cage and was hopping about on the cage when my wife

came in ; she gave it some mealworms and tried to pick it up with¬

out first closing the window. The bird flew out of the window and

then tried to come in at another window which was shut; he flew

rather hard against the glass which frightened him and he went off

into my garden, and though he was about for a day or two I could

never catch him and he disappeared, probably joining up into

another family party, of which there were several about just then.

The remaining one is now very well and tame, and at the time of

writing (July 29th), is fast getting his second plumage, his crooked

tail has dropped out except two feathers and been replaced by a nice

straight one, and the pink on the back is just beginning to show

(the young in first plumage are plain black and white with red eye¬

lids). One always sees the eye painted dark brown in illustrations,

but in both my birds the iris was very pale pinkish brown, but the

pupil is large, which gives the appearance of a dark eye, unless one

looks very close.


My bird now, curiously enough, refuses spiders or flies, but

is very fond of mealworms, and begins calling and hanging on to the

front of his cage directly he hears me coming, as I usually give him

a mealworm when I come into the room ; he also eats green fly,

wasp grubs and moths if I take the wings off first. He always

beats mealworms, etc. against his perches before swallowing, and

has no idea of holding food in his feet and pulling bits off as blue

tits do.


Before I lost one of my birds they always huddled up against



