THE



Avicultural Magazine


THE JOURNAL OF THE

AVICULTURAL SOCIETY



Fourth Series.— Vol. X.—No. 3. —All rights reserved. MARCH, 1932.



THE PAINTED FINCH (EMBLEMA PICTA)


This brilliant little bird—more brilliant perhaps than beautiful—

is a great rarity nowadays in aviculture. It is an inhabitant of the

warmer parts of Australia. Although discovered in 1839, it seems to

have been practically lost sight of until 1894, when the Horne Expedi¬

tion came across it in Central Australia. Subsequently a few living

.specimens reached this country. Mr. Herbert Astley acquired a pair

in 1896, and specimens were exhibited at shows in London in 1908.

In 1910 Mr. F. E. Blaauw purchased a pair from the Antwerp Zoological

Cardens, which nested in a box in a warm sheltered outdoor aviary,

building a large, dome-shaped nest from the materials of two Common

Wrens’ nests and one Robins’. Apparently nothing came of their

attempts. He describes these as “ very quiet little birds, which in

many of their little ways remind me of the Red-shouldered Finch

from Africa (Pytelia phcenicoptera) ”. (Avicultural Magazine,

1910, p. 289.) Mr. Reginald Phillipps, in our Magazine for 1911,

writes of his experience with the species and records the astonishing

fact that some sixty pairs of Painted Finches reached the Port of

London in February of that year !


Mr. Phillipps found them quite ready to go to nest, but although

he had three pairs only one young bird left the nest and this sub¬

sequently died, and in spite of the number of birds imported at that

time, none seems to have been successfully reared from the nest, which

seems to show that our climate is unsuitable to their well-being and,



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