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The Meeting of Council and Members' Tea



an aviary breeding is, of course, quite out of the question, for

any eggs laid would almost certainly be devoured at once, and

young birds, if hatched out, would quite certainly be taken by the

other inmates of the aviary. My experience with the Corvidae is

that it is difficult to prevent the parents themselves making a meal

off their young, but more of this anon.


Should any pair of a mixed series show definite signs of wishing

to nest, the only possible course is to catch them up and put them in

an enclosure to themselves.


(To be continued.)



THE MEETING OF COUNCIL AND

MEMBERS’ TEA


The summer meeting of the Council will be held in the Zoological

Gardens at 3 p.m. on Thursday, 15th June, and members of the

Society are invited to tea in the Fellows’ Tea Pavilion at 4 p.m.



CORRESPONDENCE


AN UNCOMMON MUNIA


Sir, —The much-respected James Yealland, of Binstead, Isle of

Wight, who recently passed away after a long suffering illness, sent

me a few weeks ago an uncommon whitish headed Mannikin. As far

as I could ascertain without comparing it with skins in the Museum

it was Munia pallidiceps (no black centre to the belly), chest

downwards being dusky and mottled lightly. It resembled M. flavi¬

prymna rather than M. maja or ferruginosa, and apparently comes

from Lombock. I have possessed alive M. pectoralis, castaneithorax,

flaviprymna, maja, ferruginosa, atricapilla, malacca, punctulata,

topela, risoria, subundata, two species of Uroloncha and four of

Spermestes and several other allied birds, but the example submitted

tallied with a written description of M. pallidiceps alone. It is the

first time I have seen this bird; it is the sort of bird one would

expect to be produced from a union of M. maja with M. flaviprymna.


Allen Silver.



