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262 'Foreign Fiyiches in Captivity.
Abraliaius io send me a pair. AVitli the latter there was 110 troxihle, excepting
that they would pluck out their feathers to add to the nest. They had plenty of
nesting-materials but often when I wondered wh}- they never hatched their eggs,
I have taken down the box aud discovered that it contained nothing but a little
dirt and four or five dried up and partly incubated or broken eggs. At last, in
1893, they brought up one j?oungster, its upper 'surface eutirel}' pearl grey, its
under parts white, beak and legs flesh-pink : at the first moult the grey wholly
disappeared.
About midsummer, so far as I can remember, I turned this young bird into
my Weaver aviary, where I had a single fine cock bird of the grey (or wild)
type; the two cpiickh' made friends and though I subsequently turned in my two
unpaired white males ; the young white female stuck to her first choice. On the
3rd Februarj^ 1894 I heard the cries of young birds in nij' Weaver aviar}- aud
soon discovered that the pair of Java-Sparrows Avas bringing up a famil}- : three
weeks later five young birds left the nest, one being coloured like an ordinary
wild bird in its nestling plumage, with black beak and all complete, two somewhat
paler, with parth- black beaks and two resembling the young plumage of
their mother—grej' aud white with ros}- beaks and legs. About three days later
my pair of White Java-Sparro\\-s were heard feeding a youngster, which left the
nest three weeks later and resembled a wild bird in its first plumage.
Now it seems to me that when birds go to nest, la)- and hatch out, without
one's knowledge ; and bring up a family of five sturdy youngsters on paddy-rice
and the soft food put into the aviary for the benefit of a LiotIirix\ they can
hardly be said to be diificult to breed. It may indeed be said that ui)- experience
is probably unique, but a Mr. Wood of Chatham bred manj' Java-Sparrows in his
Bird-room, without troubling himself specially to do so ; and although personalh'
I never saw the birds, my friend Mr. Frohawk assures me that they exhibited all
the gradations from the wild tj-pe to the pure white bird.
The presence of Liothrix I ulcus in mj' Weaver aviary might have been expected
to be prejudicial to the rearing of an)- young birds, on account of the
proneness of that Accentor to rob nests of their eggs : nevertheless I have reared
Canaries in that aviarj-, although the eggs were often uncovered immediately
below the branch on which he perched.
After the j'oung birds in the Weaver-aviary had left the nest, I cleaned out
the nest-box and gave fresh nesting material ; but, so far as I could see, both
parents seemed to be frequently flying about and I had no idea that the hen had
again deposited eggs and incubated them, when on the ist April I heard the
The Java Sparmv. 263
strong voices of a second family being fed; these left the uest about twenty-four
days old and were attacked b)- the first family, which I had to remove to a cage.
Meanwhile the White Java-Sparrows set to work in earnest to build a better
uest than they had ever previously constructed and in this four eggs were
deposited ; the young bird however persisted in entering the nest in spite of its
parents ; I therefore took it away and placed it in a breeding-cage with my young
widowed Ribbon-finch, a bird about eighteen months old.
Later in the year I again heard young birds in the Weaver-aviary, caught
niy second family of five youngsters and placed them in a flight-cage with the
first family. The third nestful consisted of fonr, one of which died soon after it
left the nest. After this the parents seemed to be satisfied with what they had
accomplished and (for the time at auyrate) left off breeding. I therefore again
thoroughl}- cleansed their nest-box and replaced it. The White pair in the
breeding-cage did not attempt to breed a second time and I eventually turned
them into the Weaver aviary and gave up their cage to a pair of Sharp-tailed
Finches. Later in the year I turned the latter into my outer aviary and gave
their cage to a pair of the youug Java-Sparrows whose heads were almost wholly
white and their general colouring lighter than in the majority of their brethren.
The young hen began to lay towards the end of September, its age being probabl)
about eight months; the first two clutches of eggs got broken, with the
exception of one which she covered up with nesting-material aud which hatched
out, but was not reared.
In October the pair in the Bird-room again went to nest aud, about the 15th
November, six strong young birds took wing, having been brought up in a
genuine cigar-box, in which they must have felt somewhat cramped. These
youug birds I very unwisely left in the Bird-room with the parents, the consequence
being that two nests of young birds which flew in January 1895, were
pecked one by one as soon as they flew by these six little ruffians, their heads
being literally skinned.*
The love-dance of the Java-Sparrow is very ludicrous ; he bends his body like
an arch over the perch, turns his head sideways towards the female and lifts
himself jerkil^r up and down, singing all the while, and graduallj' sidling up to
his mate.
Illustration from living specimens in the author's collection.
* I saved only three out of .seven. On Llarcli 2SII1 aud two following days four young left tlie uest iu one
of uiy cages; their parents being hoth grey birds reared in 1894, and in May I reared seven more from two
nests, l^ate iu the year all my paired birds nested again, so that (from first to last) I reared 2i birds iu 1895.
and in February 1896, youug birds again began to leave the nests iu mj' bird-room.
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