Notes on Hybrid Ploceidce.



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general pattern, colouring, and also (which I consider far more

important) in voice or language, they are very dissimilar; there

being no resemblance whatever between the plaintive mewing of

a Spotted-sided finch and the staccato toy-trumpet notes of a

Zebra-finch : furthermore, as the late Dr. Russ correctly pointed

out, the Diamond- or Spotted-sided finch is by no means an easy

bird to breed, whereas the Zebra-finch is more easily bred than

any other Grass-fincli. It is interesting to note that the hybrid

of our plate is the only known mule with Staganopleura guttata

as one parent which is recorded by Dr. Russ as having been bred

prior to 1887.


Respecting this hybrid its owner (Mr. Seth-Smith) writes

as follows :—“ I received the hybrid on the 24th of April last.

It was bred in captivity in Australia, the male parent being a

Diamond-finch and the female a Zebra-finch. It is slightly

smaller than a Diamond - finch and less clumsily built. In

appearance it resembles the Diamond-finch more than the Zebra-

finch, but its song is much more like that of a Zebra- than a

Diamond-finch.


“It has become a good deal darker on the chest than when

the drawing was made. The reddish colouring on the chest is

curious, as neither of the parent species has it. The bill, you

will notice, is not nearly so red as in either parent.”


It seems to me that in hybrids between species not nearly

related, we ought not to expect to see a perfect combination of

the two parent species ; that, to some extent, there is likely to be

a throw-back to the remote common ancestor of both and of

other species. In some of the descendants of this extinct an¬

cestor we should expect to find the reddish breast retained in a

more or less modified condition ; and in Emblema picta, which

Russ’ observations seem to prove to be related to Staganopleura

guttata , we find the centre of the lower breast and abdomen

scarlet like the rump.


Both the Diamond- and the cock Zebra-finch have white

spotted sides, the spots in the former being upon a black ground

as in Emblema picta , but those in the latter upon a cinnamon

ground ; at an earlier stage of their evolution, doubtless, the

sides of the ancestor of these birds were merely crossed by



