BIRDS. 55d 
half-a-dozen adult birds of the common Tasmanian species, Zosterops dorsalis, came into 
the writer’s possession and were experimentally liberated and supplied with food in a 
large glass-enclosed verandah, where they had abundant room to enjoy full flight. It 
was noted then how diligently they sought out and devoured the aphides with which 
many of the plants in the flower-stands were affected. By the time this source of 
supply was exhausted the birds had become so tame and accustomed to the writer’s 
presence that, on his bringing a green branch in from the garden, they would pitch upon 
it while held in his hand, and search for and appropriate its insect treasures. An 
observation recorded of these experimentally domesticated birds was the circumstances 
that they always burst into the fullest song when the rain was pattering on the 
verandah roof. Wild individuals roving freely in their native haunts were observed 
to sing most vigorously in a similar manner during falling rain. 
Apart from the generally expressed, but by no means correct, statement that 
no Australian birds are songsters, the assertion that the brightest members of the 
feathered tribe are mute or productive only of discordant sounds is accepted as a 
universal truism. As obtains, however, in the case of most general rules, several 
more or less conspicuous exceptions occur. In this special association a remarkably 
brilliant one is yielded by the avifauna of North Australia. Writing of the beautiful 
Grass, or Gouldian, Finch, Poephila Goulde, in his monumental work, the 
“ Birds of Australia,” the late Mr. John Gould remarks: “It is beyond the power 
of my pen to describe, or my pencil to portray, anything like the splendour of the 
changeable hue of the lilac band which crosses the breast of this little gem, or the 
scarcely less beautiful green of the neck and the golden yellow of the breast; the 
latter colour is only equalled, certainly not surpassed, by the crest feathers of the 
Golden Pheasant. Whenever this bird becomes so far common as to form a part of 
our preserved collections, or to add a living lustre to our aviaries, it cannot fail to 
become a general favourite.” 
Since the publication of Mr. Gould’s work in 1848, this finch and the yet more 
brilliant Scarlet-headed species or variety, the Poephila mirabilis of the same authority, 
have come to be imported extensively into the English market, and, though somewhat 
high in price, are at most times procurable at the first-class dealers. 
Much of the otherwise necessarily elaborate description of the marvellous tints 
of these most exquisite little finches may be saved by a reference to the coloured 
Plate, Chromo II., facing page 39, which has been specially executed for this work 
by the talented bird artist, J. G. Keulemans, from living specimens in the author's 
