62 Captain Stanley S. Flower,


Brampton in her excellent account " Bengalese as Cage-Birds,"

" Avic. Mag." Vol. II., No. 4, (Feb. 1904), pp. 134-135, expressly

states : " By putting together birds of different colours I have

had chocolate and white, fawn and white, and pure white young

ones in the same nest."


This bird being so easily obtainable, making such a

charming pet, and being essentially an inhabitant of a cage —

(has it ever been found wild ?) — should make an ideal subject for

experimental breeding.


In the " Avic. Mag." Vol. I., No. 3, (Jan. 1903), p. 112, the

Reviewer writes: "Domestication is also responsible for the

white form of the Java Sparrow, and the white and pied forms

(Bengalese) of the Sharp tailed Finch, Uroloncha striata. We

perfectly agree with Mr. Finn that there is no reason for

supposing the latter birds to be hybrids."


In the British Museum Catalogue of Birds, Vol. XIIL, by

Dr. R. Bowdler Sharpe (1890), I have failed to find this bird, but

one notes that 110 species of Uroloncha or Aidemosyne occurs in

Japan, where most authors seem to state our "Bengalee"

originated ; the nearest geographical approach being Uroloncha

squamicollis Sharpe (loc. cit. p. 359), whose habitat is given as

" China, Formosa, and Hainan." Neither apparently does any

species of Munia sens, strict, extend nearer to Japan than

Formosa and Hainan (i.e. Munia Jormosa Swinhoe and Mtcnia

topela Swinhoe).


Of course that the energetic Japanese and the cage-bird

loving Chinese should import and breed birds whenever they

have had the chance is most probable, but with other closely

allied Ploceidce nearer at hand, it appears to me to want further

proof before we can accept Uroloncha striata of " Central and

Southern India and Ceylon " as the origin of their domestic

breeds. On the other hand, I (with no access to a general

library) do not know 011 what grounds the statements rest that

our "Bengalee" originated with the Japanese (or Chinese) : it

may have been evolved in India, but that does not appear to me

to be at all probable.


Moreover it must be remembered that our knowledge of

the avifauna of Eastern Asia is by 110 means yet complete :



