Correspondence



137



which has excited the greatest interest ever since its discovery in 1840.

The body and legs are those of a typical Pigeon, but the heavy bill

is notched on the cutting edge and hooked like the beak of a Parrot.


There is one very beautiful Lory (Vini australis), while another, the

Ruffed Lory ( Calliptilus solitarius ) of Fiji is often kept by the natives,

and escaped birds are sometimes met with in the bush. A most

beautiful scarlet-breasted Robin (Petroica pusilla), two Kingfishers,

a Fantail ( Rhipidura nebulosa), several species of Honeyeaters, and

a very beautiful Parrot Finch (Erythrura cyanovirens) are some of the

more attractive birds met with of the sixty-three species indigenous

to the islands. (John Bale, Sons and Danielsson, Ltd., Great Titchfield

Street, W. 1, 8s. post free.)



CORRESPONDENCE, NOTES, ETC.


HYBRIDS


I was interested to read Mr. Teague’s letter on Hybrids in

the April number (p. 84).


In reply to the inquiry there, I can tell him that in my Records

of Birds Bred in Captivity (Witherby, 1926), the first, second, and fifth

crosses the writer mentions, i.e. the two Waxbill (Nos. 185a and c,

p. 216) and the Yellow-rumped Serin X Canary (No. 63 d, p. 187) were

included, though none of the three records are as satisfactory as one

would wish, and two only refer to success abroad.


Of the other hybrids reared by Mr. Teague, Cape Canary X Green

Singing Finch and vice versa, Linnet X Canary, and Linnet X Green

Singing Finch, I have no records at all.


If the breeder would give us particulars in our pages of these

successes, they would be of real value, and of especial interest to me,

a collector of such records and the possible producer of another edition

of my 1926 effort. E. Hopkinson.



AN OLD BANKSIAN


It may be worth recording that the Banksian Cockatoo whose

demise I referred to in the May number proved, on post mortem, to

have died of old age, and her body apparently showed no trace of the



