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On the Violet-eared Waxbill.



A few days back, however, I found this conclusion rudely

traversed by a statement which appears in the latest issue, that

for June, 1906, of The Journal of the South African Ornithologists'

Union. On pages 28 and 29 Dr. Edmond Symonds, a member of

the Union, in a paper on “ Some Members of the Family Plo-

ceidse occurring in the Kroonstad District, Orange River Colony,”

writes of this species as follows :—“ Some years these beautiful

birds are plentiful and found winter and summer in the bush

along the river and also at Rlienoster Kop, which is near here.

In other years not one is to be seen. I have never yet found

a nest; the boys do a large trade in catching them in trap-cages

and selling them, but they require a lot of care to keep them

safely through the winter. I have seen them in flocks of at

least fifteen to twenty, and they can be easily recognised by

the blue rump.”


It is to be hoped that Captain Horsbrugh, who is now due

back in this country from South Africa, and who has also been

keeping them for some time, will give us the benefit of his

observations on the species at no distant date.


I have found the Violet-eared Waxbill to be endowed with

considerable intelligence, far above the average of birds of this

class.


In the garden it usually goes to roost late, often very

late ; and before doing so it not infrequently calls out lustily after

the manner of our Blackbird, and doubtless from the same cause

—cats and other marauders of the night.


After rain, it delights in flopping amongst the wet foliage

of trees and shrubs.


In print it is occasionally referred to as the Grenate Finch,

Grenadine Waxbill, Sec., but I have never heard it spoken of

otherwise than as the Violet-eared Waxbill, a simple name which,

in this country at any rate, let us hope it will retain.



