Noles on Buds of Cape Colony. 99 
tember but never seemed to succeed in building a nest, and I 
found afterwards that a Red-lieaded Finch and a Red-billed 
Weaver were the cause of the trouble, for as soon as a nest was 
commenced they never rested until they had pulled it to pieces. 
I removed them to a small aviary containino^ Budgerigars where 
there were no nests to demolish, and the Budgerigars were well 
able to take care of themselves. In August of the following year 
I paired a cock Alario with a hen Canar\' and they reared three 
young — one cock and two hens. I kept the cock bird for several 
years ; he became very tame and was a great favourite and also a 
splendid little songster, his song being a mixture between that 
of an Alario antl a Canary. 
I have made several attempts at keeping different species 
of Nectarinidae or Sunbirds in cages, but it was not until last year 
that I met with any success. When out catching Great-tailed 
Whydahs, one day I came across numbers of the Orange-breasted 
Sunbirds feeding on small flies and insects in a patch of bracken 
fern. Not being very successful that day at catching Whydahs, 
I thought I would try and secure one of these exquisitely 
coloured little Sunbirds, for it was some x'ears since I had tried 
to keep one. It was not long before I had caught a young and an 
adult female, and having a two-mile walk across the veldt to the 
road and then eight miles on my bicycle, I started for home at 
once so as not to keep the birds longer without food and water 
than was absolutely necessary. From my observations of these 
little Sunbirds in their wild state, and from my limited experience 
of them in captivity, I find that they are constantly feeding all 
daj', from sunrise to sunset, and that their being without nourish- 
ment for an hour or two whilst being conveyed home was the 
chief cause of my not being successful in keeping them in 
captivity. 
As soon as I had got ni}' two birds home and given them 
a more roomy cage, I supplied them with some ripe orange, 
water, milk sweetened with sugar, and a bunch of a species of 
heath which was very plentiful on the veldt and which they 
seemed to prefer to any other flowers. The young bird started 
to feed at once on the juice of the orange and the milk, but the 
adult hen was very wild and refused to touch anything, and 
