A Winter Albino
' This is the true story of a bird that willingly exchanged freedom for captivity. A doctor in a Home County keeps a few birds in cages that are large enough to be called aviaries. In one of these was a hen bullfinch whose personality so pleased a wild bird that he would come daily and perch on the cage and talk to the imprisoned beauty. He was so insistent that at last he was admitted to the cage, and ever since has evidently relished his position. But a strange thing has happened. When he first came to sing on the cage he was clad in the full salience of colour, of red and black and white and other subtler tints. Today all his colours, save a slight and delicately diffused pink on the breast, have faded into whiteness. He looks a born albino. The bird appears to be very fit ; and his spring moult is awaited with eagerness. Will his colours be restored to him or will he grow into a revived whiteness ? It would be interesting to know whether aviculturists have had any similar experiences and whether they attribute the disappearance of the colour to a change of diet or of circumstance.
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