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Dr. A. G. Butler,



week in April the hen was sitting steadily, and I hoped that all

would be well; the cock sat on a branch near the nest and

vigorously attacked every other bird which approached ; he even

drove a Necklaced Dove paired to a hen White Barbary from their

eggs, in a nest on top of the brushwood, so that the latter failed

to get steadily incubated.


At the end of the month both birds suddenly deserted the

nest and seemed far from well; on May 2nd the cock died,

evidently from inflammation of the bowels; and on the 4th the

hen followed his example : I am afraid that a consignment of

unusually dusty millet received a few days before they were taken

ill, must have been at the root of the trouble ; but it is strange

that no other birds in the aviary were affected.


O11 examining the nest, two eggs were found in it; owing

to the cramped unnatural shape of the concavity (it could not be

correctly called a cup) one egg was only so far incubated that the

yolk was somewhat toughened, and burst through the shell when

I tried to blow it; the other was distinctly incubated the embryo

beginning to take form and veined with blood, but was not

sufficiently advanced for the time ; indeed it ought to have been

ready to hatch, as the hen had been sitting quite a fortnight.


Both birds being in good condition, I sent them to a

taxidermist to be prepared as skins; and I asked him at the

same time to sex them. On the iotli they came to hand with the

following instructive information—“ The first Cardinal you sent

was a $, my brother skinned it, and he says he should think the

bird was laying, as the ovaries* were very large. The last one,

which I skinned, was also a female.”


It is perhaps a peculiarity of female Cardinals, when they

possess two functional ovaries, that they are endowed with all the

external characters and possess all the reproductive powers of

male birds; that the} ? sing to and chase other hens, show them

where to build, and indeed, so far as the aviculturist is concerned,

answer the purpose equally well.f It is absolutely certain that



* These italics are mine.—A. G. B.


t The taxidermist must have mistaken the male organs for “ large ovaries.” If the

eggs were really fertilized the bird was of course a male.—E d.



