340



The Breeding of the Yellowish Finch.



four never-to-be-forgotten nights! when we bivouacked without

any ordinary camp appliances (see illustration) and were

devoured by ticks and mosquitos. The feature of this ground

was mostly tropical forest, some virgin, but some had evidently

been burnt at different periods. It was abundantly watered,

mostly by lagoons and marshes, but there are some springs

and small streams.


In a future number of the Magazine I hope to give a

further account of some of the islands we visited, with a short

account of the birds, several living examples of which may now

be seen in the Zoological Gardens.



THE BREEDING OF THE YELLOWISH FINCH.



Although there is little that is particularly interesting or

attractive in Sycalis arvensis as an avicultural subject it may be

worth while to place on record the successful rearing of a young

bird in my aviary this summer, especially as I believe it to be

the first instance of this species rearing young in this country.


In this Magazine for January, 1905, Dr. Butler published a

very interesting and exhaustive article on this species, so that

little need be said here except to describe the nesting habits as

observed in my aviary. Quite early in the summer the cock

commenced his song, which Dr. Butler has aptly compared to the

running down of a watch-spring. It is nothing but a somewhat

shrill buzzing, unlike that of any other bird with which I am

acquainted, though perhaps the Grass-hopper Warbler comes

closest to it. Whenever the hen showed herself the cock would

commence his buzzing and fly to a branch near her and expand

and quiver his wings and tail, the while swaying his body from

side to side and buzzing his loudest.


There is, in my aviary, a thick clump of brushwood reach¬

ing to a height of nine or ten feet, through which have grown

privet and gooseberry bushes, so that the whole now forms a

tangled mass of sticks and growing branches. Right in the

centre of this tangle the hen Yellowish Finch constructed her

nest which was entirely built of grass, the outer part being of



