148 
A Retrospect. 
I cannot recollect what happened to my first pair. I have 
a hazy recollection of young, but it is hazy. I wish I had kept 
notes, but whether they bred or not, certainly none of the others 
did, and 1 have kejit heaps of them. I once had about six pairs of 
aviary-I)red and the parents, and yet never bred them. 1 had 
at other times several pairs of imported birds, and those i 
brought back myself. 
Every night, wet or fine, they slept out and would not 
go in, and to try and drive them in merely disturbed them, and 
resulted in their sleeping on the wires, where they were an easy 
prey for cats and owls. 
The Ruficauda is a bird always ready to go to nest, at 
least I found it so, and a pair of these gave me one of my first 
successes. I, however, always found them delicate, parti'. ularly 
the hens. 
They are certainly not as striking in colour as tne Goul- 
dian Finch, but are well worth including in an aviary, and what 
is more there seems a reasonable chance of them breeding, and 
althovigh they do not make the same fuss about it that tnc Zebra 
Finches do. I would feel more certain of results from say. three 
pairs of Ruficauda than I would from three pairs of Zebra 
Finches. 
The Rose Finches were birds I did not like for, although I 
at one time possessed two distinct species, they never bred and 
were distinctly shy birds, delighting in getting into the thickest 
l)ush and staying" there ; and again they are large for .1 mixed 
series such as mine was. 
They retained the pink colour with me when they 
moulted; at least, all but one did, and he retained part of "t; this 
loss of colour is one of the chief objections to this class of bird. 
A pair of Golden-fronted Fruitsuckers is one of the treats 
I have always promised myself, but up to date I have never got so 
far as buying them. At the Zoo I always made a point of paying 
them a visit and leaving my card in the form of a few meal- 
worms. One can't have everything, and Fruitsuckers Wv-re one 
of those that I reserved for a later date. 
