Page:The Zoologist, 4th series, vol 1 (1897).djvu/280

252 pair, and turned them out in a large cool aviary with about fifty small birds of various kinds. During the whole of 1896 S. albigularis, with the exception of occasional wordy disputes with S. gutturalis, was a pattern of amiability; but from the beginning of April, 1897, he began to show his true character, disputing incessantly with my Goldfinches, one of which he would have murdered had I not fortunately come upon the scene just as he commenced to tear at the feathers on its forehead, making it scream with fright and pain. Within a fortnight from that date it had killed two Amaduvade Waxbills, Sporæginthus amandava; one Green Amaduvade, Stictospiza formosa; and four Zebra-finches, Tæniopygia castanotis, one of these being a young bird only two days out of the nest, the other three adults which were breeding. The last victim had the skull entirely bared, the eyes pecked out, the neck reduced to a mere thread, the base of the wing cleared of coverts and quite raw, and the whole of one side of the breast raw and bare of skin. I have removed that White-throated Finch to an aviary where he will have the society of birds twice his own size, chiefly African Weavers (Pyromelana, Quelea, &c).

The history of the Green Singing-finch, Serinus icterus, is similar, only it is rarely aggressive excepting in the breeding season, when it fiercely attacks other Serins, Goldfinches, &c. Canaries have no chance against it; they are hunted down, and the skin almost instantly torn back from the base of the beak.

Of course many of the true Fringillidæ, such as the species of Sycalis and Paroaria, are well known to be dangerous associates for smaller and weaker birds; but, until 1896, I was not aware that Sycalis flaveola, savage and pugnaceous as it always is towards males of its species, was capable of murdering its own mate. However, after breeding from a pair in a large flight-cage for several years, the hen refused to continue to accept her husband's attentions; whereupon he knocked her down, grasped her firmly, tore off her scalp, and temporarily blinded her. Hearing the screams of the wounded bird, I took her out, applied vaseline to her wounds, and caged her separately; in a fortnight she recovered her sight, but at the end of a month I found her dead.

Among the smaller Ploceidæ there are a few very spiteful birds,