200 
Correspondence. 
in her aviarv at Mastorton, hut she has not succeeded in getting- them to 
hreed as yet. 
■j'lie Tui is another of our beautiful hirils. a honey-eater; the bush used 
to l)e aHve with these and the Makoniako or Bell liird, also a honey-eater. 
The song of both species used to fill our bush with music, but now one can 
tK'vel all (la\ through the bush and hardly hear a bird. 
.\11 our native binls are now jirotected. but I am afraid many of them 
are doomed to become extinct before many years pass. 
W'e have a goodly number of English birds wild here, viz : Goldfinch, 
'S'ellow-hammcr, (ireenlinch. Hedge Sparrow, Skylarks, Blackbirds, Thrushes, 
and, of cotnse, the House Sparrow, the latter species being the most common 
:i!ul to be found in every suburban garden, but none of them, to my mind, 
can make uj) for the loss of our own native birds. 
.\viculturists are few and far between here, only three of us in Welling- 
ton that I know of, and only one m Auckland. I often envy the aviculturists 
of England, they are so numerous, have free intercourse, and can compare 
notes with each other ; besides they have the London Zoo. 
Kilburnie, Wellington, N.Z., 23: v.: 21. ANDREW AINSWORTH. 
0 
UNUSUAL BEHAVIOUR OE LONG-TAH.ED GRASSEINCHES. 
Di;\R Sir, — I have a pair of Long-tailed Grassfinches (Focphila 
aculicauda), which have behaved in rather an unusual manner this season. 
They have made three attempts at nesting : the first nest had five eggs ; 
tliey brought out two dead young birds a day or two old. and successfully 
reared one young bird ; the other two eggs were fertile, but did not hatch out. 
The second nest was a complete failure ; they hatched out three chicks, 
but brought them all out dead when only just born. 
The last nest was quite recently; they had five eggs, brought out tw^ 
dead youngsters about the same age as the others, and had three left in the 
nest. They are now about ten to twelve days old. This week the parent 
or parents must have brought two of them out of the nest, for I found one 
evening two on the aviary floor alive, and, I think, unhurt (it was quite 
ir possible for the birds to have fallen out in the place I discovered them). 
I replaced them in the nest and found them all well in the morning, but in 
the evening two were on the floor again, and apparently unhurt. I again 
replaced them in the nest, but was not at all sure I was doing the best thing 
for the young birds. The next morning they were again out. and I decided 
to put one in the proper nest, and give the others to a pair of Bengalese to 
see if they would do the right thing as foster parents. This pair of birds 
had had two eggs in theii; nest-box for some weeks, but have reared nothing 
this season or last ; they are two years old. The parents, however, were 
particularly good, and I had noticed an odd Bengalese feeding them, so T 
had concluded it was a fair risk to give this particular pair the youni Long- 
