;: irS-
132 Foreign. Finches in Captivity.
like the Violet-eared Waxbill or the Australian Fire Finch, it would pay the
dealers to have plates drawn on stone and coloured; the coloured illustrations
might be sent out to the nearest port to the headquarters of these birds, with an
order for a large consignment. When birds are abundant they can be caught,
and if natives are paid to catch certain species, there can be • little doubt "that they
will be glad to obtain them. As Dr. Russ says: single specimens arrive now and
then, and fifty or a hundred head could be as easily sent home as single specimens;
where there is one Waxbill there are many not far away, for, when not breeding,
almost all the species (if not all) move about in large or small flocks and find
their food upon the ground, so that there ought to be no difficulty in snaring or
netting them.
I was recently speaking to the owner of an estate on the Transvaal, where
some of Mr. Ayres' specimens were shot, and he assured me that there would lie
no difficulty in obtaining birds, or in making rough cages in which to send them
home; the only difficulty would be in transporting them to the ship \vdiich was to
bring them to Europe. This gentleman, though not a young man, had himself
brought a heavy case of butterflies with him to England, and I pointed out to
him that a cage of birds would be lighter and certainly quite as easy of export
as that packing-case; the butterflies might be carried unset in a very small
compass and a valuable consignment of Violet-eared Waxbills and other saleable
birds substituted for the heavy box in which his pinned insects had been brout^ht
home. In the interest of science, it is to be hoped that he will adopt my suggestion
when he next visits Europe.
Dr. Russ tells us that "the first living bird of this species which was brought
to Europe, must have been that received in Paris in 1754 by the Marquise de
Pompadour. She was kno^vn to be an enthusiastic friend of foreign birds, and
kept this Astrild alive for three years."
"Vieillot designates the Grenadine as one of the most beautiful and elegant,
but also most delicate of all these little Finches; he praises its gentle and yet so
lively disposition and its lovely song. With regard to the latter both ancient and
recent writers, namely, Vieillot, after him Reichenbach, and then again von
Heuglin, are certainly not making assumptions, as they almost uniformly praise
these little Ornamental Finches as excellent singers. I invariably quote such
statements as a matter of course; but in all the instances, in which, according to
the unanimous declarations of all breeders and observers, the said bird in captivity
either does not sing or scarcely enough to be worth mentioning, I have recorded
these as being simply matter of fact."
m
The Viokl-Eared Waxbill. 133
Wiener saj's that this bird lived in his aviary for nearly two years in a very
moderate temperature, and sang merrily and sweetly with the thermometer between
50 and 55 degrees Fahr. He parted with him to enable a friend at Baden-Baden,
who had a hen-bird to try to breed the species. The bird travelled from England
to Germany in February without any ill-effects.
Illustrations from a living example in the Zoological Society's Gardens, and
from skins in the Natural History Museum.
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