Identifier: illustratedbooko00blak (find matches)
Title: The illustrated book of canaries and cage-birds, British and foreign
Year: 1878 (1870s)
Authors: Blakston, W. A Swaysland, W Wiener, August F
Subjects: Canaries Cage birds
Publisher: London New York : Cassell, Petter, Galpin & Co.
Contributing Library: Harvard University, Museum of Comparative Zoology, Ernst Mayr Library
Digitizing Sponsor: Harvard University, Museum of Comparative Zoology, Ernst Mayr Library

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esides. Rare birds have come into myhands in the most unexpected manner imaginable. Very few museums have a skin of thebeautiful Australian Painted Finch (Emblema picta, Gould), and there is probably no livingspecimen in Europe: the Zoological Garden of London never possessed one. I shall relatehereafter how I once found a pair in a hairdresser^s shop in Liverpool, and bought them fora few shillings, and how on another occasion I bought three from a journeyman wireworker.I have before me now a little African Finch which had much puzzled myself and others, untilit was settled beyond doubt that he was an entirely new species, strangely overlooked by allscientific ornithologists. Another fortunate accident enabled me to purchase a pair of birds ofa kind I had never seen before, and which were not to be found alive in any collection. Ihad the good luck to breed and rear them successfully, and one such success rewards theamateur amply for many failure:* : Cassells Canaries, and Cagl Birds,
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PARROT FINCH. Z.BICHENOS OR DOUBLE BANDED FINCH. 3. AUSTRALIAN CRIMSON FINCH. MALE. 3« FEMALE. +. CHESNUT-BREASTED FINCH. Australian Finches. 369 The list of the Zoological Society begins with the Australian Finches, the first of which is THE CRIMSON FINCH (Estrelda Phaeton, Hombr. aiidjacq.), North Australia. (Illustration painted from live birds in the Authors collection.) yEgintha Pliaiton (Russ), Fringilla Phaeton, Neochinia Phaeton, Uneginthus Phaeton. German— Sonnenastrild, or Australisclie Amaranth. English dealers generally call this bird Australian Fire Finch. We have here one of the most beautiful, but hitherto rather rare, Australian Finchesbefore us. About the size of the well-known St. Helena Waxbill, the male birds face, cheeks,throat, chest, and the entire lower body are of brilliant dark carmine-red, the back is plain brown,the wings reddish-brown, and the dark red tail is rather long, the middle feathers beinglongest. The beak is bright coral-red. On the sides of t

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