363



Correspondence , Notes, etc.



is in good health and plumage and extremely tame. It flies about the

rooms and comes to the hand or shoulder to rest, nestling down and enjoy¬

ing caresses and the warmth of the hand. It has always been fed on

preserved eggs and fresh houseflies, which last, however, it will not catch

for itself, requiring to have them killed and put into its tood vessel where

it pecks them out like a regular cage bird. The lady who reared it is

extremely fond of it and looks forward with anxiety to the time when

houseflies will become scarce. We are anxious to know if you can recom¬

mend any substitute for flies as it is not likely that the bird will keep in

health without some insect food. It will not touch ants’ eggs either dried

or fresh.


Contrary to Dr. Butler’s experience* as narrated in the book on

British birds this Martin is not at all sluggish or greedy. The bird sleeps

in a cocoanut shell lined with cotton wool. It is kept in a warm room and

would of course have a fire when colder weather sets in.


Any information as to the best way of keeping this pretty creature

alive will be most gratefully received. Ethee F. Chawner.


The following reply has been sent to Miss Chaiuner :—


If you can get them in the winter gentles would be the most

suitable food : when I was a boy they could be obtained from fishing-

tackle shops: the caterpillars of the small meal-moth, the grain-moth, or

even those of clothes’-moths would perhaps be even more acceptable.

Then again there are those curious little insects (which harbour under

boxes or tins and which creep into one’s mealworm-boxes) called silver-fish

{Lepisma saccharina), I think they might prove useful.


Failing all living insects, I should try scalding the so-called “ dried

flies” of commerce and mixing them with the egg supplied to the bird.


A. G. BuTEER.



OCCURRENCE OF THE GLOSSY IBIS (PLEGADIS

FALCINELLUS ) IN IRELAND.


Sir,— It may interest the members of the Avicultural Society to

know that on Friday, 7th September a Glossy Ibis was shot on the Twin

Islands at the entrance to the Belfast Harbour, which, on dissection, proved

to be a male. It is now at Messrs. Sheals, Taxidermists, where I had the

pleasure of examining it. I should say by the general appearance that it

had never been kept in captivity. This brings the Irish record of this rare

visitor to over twenty-two, and it is the second occurrence in Belfast, the

last, according to Thompson, was shot in the Bog Meadows on 30th

September, 1S19. W. H. Workman, M.B.O.U.


Belfast.



* It was the Sand-Martin, not the House-Martin, which was sluggish and greedy.—A.G.B.



