BIRDS. 65 
picturesque colony of Tasmania. This little bird can lay claim neither to the array of 
brilliant tints nor to the vocal accomplishments of the Poephile. As befits its citizen- 
ship of a more temperate climate, its plumage is distinguished for the most part by its 
delicate, alternating, transverse pencillings of dark and light ashen greys. The upper 
tail-coverts, however, stand out conspicuously from the rest of its plumage by reason of 
their intense scarlet-carmine hue, which, when the bird flits along the hedgerows 
or across the woodland glades, seem to glow with the incandescence of a burning 
coal. No member of the finch tribe, not excepting even the justly belauded British 
Bullfinch, probably, is so amenable to human influences or becomes so tame and 
engaging a companion as does the little Australian Firetail. Tasmanian friends have 
attested to individuals in their possession which would accompany them in their walks 
abroad, and one of several belonging to the author would, after disporting himself in 
the garden, return to his cage at a signal whistle. Among themselves, these birds are 
eminently sociable, assembling and building in company. When several are kept 
together and allowed their liberty in a dwelling room, they are up to all sorts of 
frolics, and there is hardly anything that they like better than to join a companion at 
opposite ends of a strand of cotton and to pull for dear life one against the other in 
a veritable “tug-of-war.” One bird would even address himself so vigorously to this 
game of cotton-pulling as to allow himself to be lifted off the ground by one end of 
the fabric, while he held on with his beak to the other, and so hung suspended in the 
air for several seconds. With their owner, whom they speedily grow to know, 
Firetails place themselves upon the most familiar terms, exploring his pockets, 
penetrating up his coat sleeves and taking no end of liberties. One special pet, who 
travelled home to England, extended his friendship to visitors and manifested a marked 
partiality for a lady acquaintance, who possessed the, to him, irresistible attraction of 
a tiny gold mine in one of her front teeth. The ambition to attain access to, and to 
exploit the profundities of that glittering El Dorado, of which his keen eyes would 
detect the most momentary display, waszhis one endeavour, and with that end in view 
his pertinacious attentions were somewhat embarrassing. 
Of song, in its true sense, the Firetail is deficient, its vocal powers being limited 
to a somewhat plaintive piping. So much does this piping resemble that of a remote 
boatswain’s whistle that on the voyage to England an example one day deceived the 
veteran skipper of the ocean liner, who, while seated at the breakfast table, was 
astonished to hear the summons, as he thought, without his authority, for the hands 
to shorten sail. Amidst much mirth, the true culprit was unearthed from an adjacent 
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