The St^'icc Finch. 
which three young' lairds duly made their exit, being then of a 
somewhat nondescript brown hue. and lacking entirely the 
light coloured areas and scalings of their parents. They did not 
don adult colouration till the following spring. The nesi" was 
an untidy, flattened globular mass of hay and grass, with many 
longish projecting ends, which almost obsctired the front en- 
trance hole. The young were reareci mostly on seed and 
greenfood, but as the parents fed by regurgitation, and they 
also partook freely of insectile mixture, milk sop, and what 
mealworms they could snap up. their progeny got the benefit 
of this varied menu. They are among the keenest of the Munias 
for live-food. 
Hybrids : This species, for some reason, is more ready 
to nest and rear yoimg when cross-mated with some other 
si:)ecies than with its own kind; for it has happened more than 
once in my own experience, and of others too, that lack of a 
mate of their own species has not been the excuse for such 
mesalliance . Some years ago in Mr. Henstock's aviary a fair 
number of really pretty hyl)rids were reared from a cock Spice 
Finch mated to a fawn ard white Bengalese. two of which he 
kindly presented to 
me, and one of 
these my brother 
[) h o t o g r a p h - 
ed. which is repro- 
d u c e d herewith 
These two birds 
were not a pair and 
though they mated 
in the course of five 
or six years witi; 
several other ''^pec 
ies. no restili ac- 
crued from the res- 
pective unions, 
though on more 
than one occ^ision 
eggs were lai;' 
T h e Spice 
Finch has crossed 
HybrKl Spice Fmch x Bengalese. ^^j^^^ Bengalese, and 
