THE



295



Bv (cultural fllbagastue,


BEING THE JOURNAL OF THE


AVICULTURAL SOCIETY.



New Series —VOL. IV. — No. 10 .—All rights reserved AUGUST, 1906.


THE VIOLET-EARED WAXBILL.


Granaiina granatina.


(Cat. B. Brit. Mus. XIII., p. 403.)


By Reginald Phiijjpps.


It is with an unwilling pen that I write this little paper,

for I have not had opportunity of fully studying the nature of

the species; and there are a few points which need further

observation before they can be regarded as settled or even

reasonably established.


The Violet-eared Waxbill is not a new bird, for it is

known to have been a visitor to Europe a full century and a

half ago. Every body knows it by name, every body wants to

possess it I am told—and, if there should be anybody who has

not seen a stray specimen at the Palace or elsewhere, at any rate

every body who has the smallest pretensions in the world to be

called any body is receiving a pretty (at least I hope so—I have

not seen it) picture of a pair with the present issue of the

Avicultural Magazine. Moreover, now that South Africa is

being so generally visited by Britishers, the living bird is becom¬

ing less and less uncommon in this country. If it may not sound

altogether too profane to say so, such numbers are coming over

at the present time that the Violet-eared Waxbill threatens to

become— common ! ! !


There was a time, and not so long ago, when the state of

affairs was very different, when an example was so rarely seen

that to obtain possession of one seemed to be a moon far beyond

the reach of an ordinary individual like myself and for which

one might cry and cry and cry in vain, when the price demanded

was for many of us impossible ; and so when, a few years back.



