. Birds I have kept in years gone by : with original anecdotes and full directions for keeping them successfully . l remember the feeling of longing, not to say envy,with which, then a youngster myself, I contemplated a sailorlad at Havre, who was carrying one of these remarkablecreatures in a bamboo cage past the window of the housewhere we were staying; presumably .the young fellow was justoff ship, and had brought the bird from Africa as a presentfor his mother, or possibly for someone nearer and dearerstill, if that can be. Tet, when my desire was fulfilled, manyyears afterwards, and I bec
. Birds I have kept in years gone by : with original anecdotes and full directions for keeping them successfully . l remember the feeling of longing, not to say envy,with which, then a youngster myself, I contemplated a sailorlad at Havre, who was carrying one of these remarkablecreatures in a bamboo cage past the window of the housewhere we were staying; presumably .the young fellow was justoff ship, and had brought the bird from Africa as a presentfor his mother, or possibly for someone nearer and dearerstill, if that can be. Tet, when my desire was fulfilled, manyyears afterwards, and I became the actual possessor of a reallive pair of Whydah-birds, I did not care nearly as muchabout them as might have been expected: which, after all, ishuman nature. To resume: Vidua paradisea, die Paradies Witve, and laVeuve d, Collier dor, as the bird is named in Latin, Germanand French, respectively, is, properly speaking the Whydah-bird: the popular designation of widow bird being, I fancy,a free translation of the Latin word vidua, as their true namewas Latinised by Linnaeus, rather than an actual name be-. THE RED-BEAKED WBAVER The Med-faced Wea/ver-hird. 143 stowed upon them by that distinguished naturalist, in conse-quence of their sombre appearance; for they are really not ataU widow-like, but, on the contrary, rather gay, and, if notexactly vivacious in manner, yet not quite as quiet and sub-dued as a mourning widow is popularly supposed to be. CHAPTER XLIII. THE EEn-PACED WEATEK-BHtB. I ONCE, and once only, possessed two of these birds, whichhad been sold to me for a pair, but turned out to be twomales, and I found them the most indefatigable constructorsof neat toy nests I ever saw. They were small birds, about the size of the Greater Eed-poU, or Siskin, and when out of colour bore a great resem-blance to a hen House Sparrow: but when they assumed theirsummer dress, the ordinary brown and black of their feathersbecame intensified, and a ring of deep red made its appea
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