Page:The Zoologist, 4th series, vol 1 (1897).djvu/279

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many years before I ventured to arrange for the publication of my 'Foreign Finches in Captivity,' I had kept and studied a considerable number of species of both the Fringillidæ and Ploceidæ; but thoroughly to comprehend the peculiar dispositions of these birds is the work of a lifetime, perhaps of several generations of lifetimes.

The first aim of the aviculturist is so to group the species that they may dwell harmoniously together, but with certain birds this is practically impossible, as I shall now proceed to explain.

The genus Spermophila was considered by my friend Herr August Wiener to consist of uninteresting but perfectly harmless birds which were content to pass an uneventful existence in munching millet-seed. I find the species of this genus very interesting, the whole of them fair, and some excellent, songsters. Most of them are innocent enough, but one—the White-throated Finch, Spermophila albigularis—is a perfect little demon. I have kept the White-throated Finch for nine or ten years. For the first year, in a large aviary, he is on his good behaviour, and sings his pretty see-saw song almost incessantly; the aviculturist is charmed, and buys two or three more males, and perhaps a female or two. From that day there is incessant war in the aviary; the males fight from dawn to twilight. If only two equally powerful males are together the fighting does little harm, but when there are three the weakest goes to the wall, is literally scalped, and unless promptly removed is certain to be torn to shreds.

When I had got as far as this in my study of S. albigularis, I thought I had plumbed the depth of its iniquity; so, never having seen it attack anything but a Spermophila, I purchased a