150 The History of the Budgerigar. 



were very faint, were exliibitcd soinn years apo (I.e. In relation tO 



"1883, the date of the publication of his book E H). at the Alexandra 



'■ Palace Show, and were sold for £6 los." 



The only fact or date in connertion with these colour 

 Mirieties which stands out prominently is that Yellow Budger- 

 igars appeared in or about 1872, and that they were pro- 

 duced gradually from the original greens. The rest is all 

 very indefinite; the albinos apparently were chance-got freaks, 

 which did not perpetuate their kind, while of the blue all that 

 one can learn is that they were known before 1880. To put it 

 crudely — someone had bred some somewhere at some time. 



At the present day we have the yellow race firmly es- 

 tablished as healthy freely breeding birds, having rapidly 

 passed through the stage of delicacy, which was common both 

 to them in their earlier stages and to their green relations 

 when first known. Now in most fiocks there is a good deal 

 of Yellow blood, without, however, affecting the distinctness 

 of the two colours in the individual. Dr. Butler in "Foreign 

 Birds for Cage and Aviary," written 1909 or 1 9 1 o, mentions 

 the greater delicacy of the Yellows, so that this change for the 

 better in their constitutions is one of quite recent develop- 

 ment. The Blue form, he tells us, he has never yet seqn, 

 though it was well known to Mr. Abrahams, who considered 

 it, like the yellow, the result of in-breeding. Dr. Butler be- 

 lieves it was more probably the result of just the opposite 

 treatment, and that it should be extremely vigorous. This 

 belief has, I am afraid, not been borne out by the experience 

 of the owners of the present race of these birds. 



Another of the anticipations of the writers I have 

 quoted regarding the possibilities of the Budgerigar emulating 

 the Canary as regards multiplicity of varieties, has al.^o hither- 

 to not been fulfilled, in spite of the numbers bred. I expect 

 the truth is that what occurs with my own birds, also occurs 

 with other people's. When the time for disposal 6f the sur- 

 plus comes, one cannot think of selection for the room is 

 wanted much more than the birds, with the result that all the 

 easily recognisable young ones and all the adults which are 

 not obviously nesting are caught and disposed of. Improve- 

 ment in breedin ^^ is not likely to occur where these methods 

 prevail. 



