300



Mr. R. Phiixipps,



to be covered entirely, excepting the front, with green baize or

other warm material, with a flap to fall partially over the front at

night, care being taken in regard to ventilation, and the bottom

being left open to allow light to fall upon the food. If kept in a

living room with a fire burning all the day, it is not unlikely

that further warmth would not be needed. Of course the more

the birds are spoken to the more companionable they will be¬

come, and, generally speaking, the more sun they have the

better.


The male has various call-notes, some loud and the reverse

of melodious but more often uttered in the garden than in the

house, such as “ squee,” “ sish,” “ squwish ”—perhaps a call

uttered by a single male for a mate, but not always so; and when

a pair in a cage are restless, apparently wanting to get out and

breed, it is a low but oft-repeated “ tsit.”


Although strong on the wing and rapid flyers, and

anything but ground birds, they are much on the ground ; and

thus it is that, when dancing to one another, or the one to the

other, perhaps invariably with something in the bill held at one

end after the approved Waxbill fashion, they often dance on the

ground, and so are able to go round and round one another in

movable circles. In the aviary, the top of a shed or any flat

place will be made use of for this purpose, perhaps in preference

to the ground. When flying short distances, the noise made by

the wings is often very considerable.


At what season should we try to get this species to breed ?

At what season should they moult? I should like to have had

time for studying these two points, as they are important in

themselves, and others hang upon and are influenced by them.


Coming from South Africa, where the summer is our

winter and the winter our summer, the Violet Ear in the British

Islands should be desirous of breeding during our winter; and

from November to March, or thereabouts, it seems to be dead set

on breeding. It may not, however, be permitted to breed in the

cold aviary during the winter; and it is not a species which

seems disposed to rear young in a confined space. The winter

breeding impulse passing off thus comparatively early in the

year, there is reasonable ground for strong hope that, after the



