The History of the Budgerigar. 127 



ceeds that which our own islands provide, one wonders where 

 they all go to, but the demand seems a constant one. Nowa- 

 days, too, the birds have become quite accustomed to our 

 seasons and go to nest at the proper season, although, if 

 allowed, will breed nearly the whole year round, and as re- 

 gards stamina and beauty most home-bred birds, unless reared 

 under giossly improper conditions, are every bdt as good as, if 

 not better than, their ship-borne brothers. One feature only 

 seems not to persist in aviary-bred birds, and this is the blue 

 legs, at least I never seem to see the really deep blue 

 colour cither in my own or other present day birds which 

 was so characteristic of imported, as opposed to home-bred 

 birds of early days. This loss of colour, however, in the 

 epidermal structures is common to nearly all ' cage-moulted ' 

 birds, British T)r Foreign. '' French moult/' a result of inbreeding 

 combined with insanitary or unsuitable environment, which at 

 one time was such a scourge, seems now to be a much rarer 

 disease, no doubt because most Budgerigars are bred in 

 aviaries and not in hutches or cages, as was often the case 

 at first. 



The case of my own birds may be taken as a faii 

 average of results usually obtained, while the next quotation 

 will touch on Budgerigars breeding in excelsis. 



Starting with one pair in 1894, they have 

 been breeding continuously ever since in a small 

 garden aviary which they share with nmnbers of other 

 small birds, British and foreign. They must be a good 

 deal in-bred, as only seven new birds have been introduced, 

 five between 1896 and 1901, three in 1908, but none since. 

 The first season there was no sign of " French moult," but 

 afterwards we began to get one or two badly feathered young. 

 In 1906. I bought two cocks for three shillings each, the 

 last '■ real Australians," by the way, I bought or remember to 

 liave seen, though they no doubt can;ic in later and still do 

 so, though at rarer intervals. The first year after they were 

 introduced we had quite a lot of the horrid little 

 wing- and tail-less results of this disease, the new ar- 

 rivals presumably not having settled down sufiicicntly to take 

 up their job. Next year, however, all was well again and we 



