154 Rev. Kingsford Tenner—Notes on my Birds


Tanagers. I seemed to have heard that much banana is very bad

for them, and yet when one receives one of these lovely birds it

frequently arrives with the remains of what must have been a whole

fruit of this kind, at least twice the length of the bird’s body; while

any one who knows these birds will agree that they will, many of

them, demolish a whole banana in a few hours. So my Scarlet cock

and Veillot’s cock get Zoo food, mixed with “ Secto ”, the latter

dry, apple, orange, and an occasional banana, never more than

a quarter or half a day. The two great orders of birds, apart from

the parrot family, which have always attracted me most are the

widely different, but equally fascinating, ones of “ Finches ” (in the

very widest sense, to bring in the Waxbills and Tanagers) and

“ Pheasants ”. Of the former, in addition to nearly all the British

ones (including some four or five species of Buntings), I have

Orange-cheek, St. Helena, Common, Gold-crest, Avadavat, Cordon

Bleu, and Yiolet-eared Waxbills, Black-and-white-headed, Tri¬

coloured, and Bronze-winged Mannikins, Lavender and Fire-finches,

Gouldians, Cut-throats, grey and white Javas, Saffron Finches,

Nonpareil and Indigo Buntings, Red-crested, Pope, and Viginian

Cardinals, Pekin Robins, and some dozen Roller Canaries. A

large and varied assortment. While in pheasants I have (or had)

Golds, Silvers, Amhersts, Reeves, Swinhoe’s, Edward’s, Chinese,

Mongolian, Monaul, and Blue Peafowl. In my opinion, a cock

Monaul, with his absolutely “ staggering ” colouring, is not only

the most beautiful of all pheasants, but possibly of all birds,

although I admit that the ordinary Peacock, the Pennant’s

Parrakeet, the cock Golden Pheasant (if this was not common, what

a price it would fetch), and sundry of the African Starlings, run

him fairly close. I use the word beauty to describe what is the

chief beauty to me—that of sheer glorious colour. By the way,

talking of Peafowl, I absolutely disagree with any one who describes

the Green or Javan species as the most beautiful. It lacks, of

course, what is, apart from its “ train ”, the great beauty of

the common species, its wonderful breast and neck colour. Green

is a beautiful shade or series of shades, but surely, especially in

a bird as big as a Javanese Peacock, it does need a little relief,



