Correspondence. 193


yellow, its inner web white, its outer web buff, another has the outer half

of the inner web black, a few of the black-centred brown feathers on the

back are washed with golden yellow and some of the secondaries have the

brown borders washed with the same colour towards the tips; thus the

winter feathers still retain their character, but are partly suffused with the

summer colouring.


The case of the Bunting is even more convincing, the greater part of

the head and back retains the rufous-brown of the winter plumage

excepting that here and there a feather shows blue on part of the base,

often more so on one web than the other, the flank feathers are more blue,

some of them only still retaining brown tips, and this is also the case with

all the wing-feathers and the upper tail-coverts, but the tail-feathers have

completed their change ; on the underparts the feathers at the sides of the

throat, the whole of the breast and abdomen are blue at base, but otherwise

still retain their winter colours. ,


Well, as my friend said, — "There you are; there is 110 getting away

from evidence like that " whether we understand it or not, in these specific

cases at any rate, we have the change of colour arrested, before our eyes,

and it is no use to insist upon its impossibility. A. G. Butter.



HOOPOES IN CAPTIVITY.

The following letter was zuriiten in reply to a member's query :

Sir, — Hoopoes in confinement are always difficult subjects. They

appear to require much warmth, although they can support for a short

time considerable cold, but I think that the heat that seems necessary for

them is to an extent dependent on their bodily health. They want plenty

of room, a dry compartment, no farinaceous food, any number of meal-

worms; you cannot overdo them. The only really good Hoopoes I ever saw

that had been long in captivity had practically nothing else. Such grass-

hoppers, leather jackets, etc., as can be provided, with yolk of egg, ants'

■eggs, etc. They require deep gritty soil to keep their beaks in order. They

are very liable to split and curl, but with everything in their favour, even

when kept in their native land, and fed practically on their natural food,

they are not easy to keep long, although they are delightfully tame con-

fiding pets. The natural food of Hoopoes appears to be almost entirely

the larvae of coleopterous insects, but I have seen them eating young

locusts in the hopping stage, also small centipedes.


E. G. B. Meade- Wat<do.



RUTHLESS IMPORTATION OF FOREIGN BIRDS.


Sir, — I think that Mr. Astley s excellent letter should be carefully

considered by every member of the Society.


I notice that the majority of aviculturists one meets rather avoid this

subject and hasten to point out how happy and contented their birds are.-



