The Mutation of the Gouldian Finch. 327


On p. 176 I note that a lien P. gotildice in my bird-room

deserted its black-headed mate in favour of a red-headed cock in

the same aviary: from information received at various times

from owners of Gouldian finches I was convinced that this is the

rule rather than the exception, the hens of these birds showing

a decided preference for red-headed males, and this led me to

the conclusion that the Red-headed Gouldian is the perfected

form of the species, the Black-head being merely a transitional

form which must shortly die out.


Not long since an ornithologist tried to convince me that

birds had no sense of colour, that they did not choose their

mates 011 account of their beauty but because of their vigour.

Is it true that the carmine in the face of a Gouldian finch or

the blue in the eyes and plumage of a Satin Bowerbird are the

mere outward signs of superabundant vitality ? There is not the

least doubt that a Satin Bowerbird prefers blue to all other

colours; for, if you throw a handful of coloured feathers into

the aviary where he lives, he always selects the blue ones first;

anything blue is undoubtedly more attractive to him than if it

were of another colour. Does a bird so frivolous as a Bowerbird

actually reverence blue as an emblem of vigour? I fear I must

plead scepticism on this point; I would rather accept the fact

that birds appreciate beauty.


In the December number of the present volume Mr.

Phillipps severely criticizes a note in Mr. Campbell’s “ Dicho¬

tomous Key to the Birds of Australia” hinting that the Black¬

face ( P . gouldice ) is merely the young plumage of the Red-face

( P. mirabilis). Of course this is an error, but it is quite

possible (as Mr. Campbell has access to my “ Foreign Finches

in Captivity”) that the statements of Messrs. Thompson and

Abrahams led him astray.


Mr. Phillipps says—“ The young of both are greenish

birds” which is a very vague way of describing the young: I

should describe them rather as dust-grey, whitish on under

parts and with a wash of dull green over wings and back, beak

blackish ; though I have no skin in the young plumage to refer

to, and my nestlings are tardy in leaving their nests, so that I

have to trust to memory (I have one skin in transitional plumage).



