302 ^'/'6 Breeding of Barnard's Parrakeets. 



that slic was I'or a time uncertain if she possessed a true pair 

 or not. 



Tlie young, on lea\ing- the nest^ liave liitle trace of l)lue 

 except on tlieir cheeks, and in tlieir tail and tliglit feathers. 

 Otherwise they vary liiic their parents, and have the red 

 frontal band fully developed from the first. It would be in- 

 teresting to know whether this is also the case with Yellow - 

 napeSj Yellow-rumps, and Yeilow- bellies. Some Bauer's x Barn- 

 ard's hybrids, to which I shall refer again later, were difl'erent ; 

 in their case the red frontal -band was so dull at first that i',s 

 outline could only be detected in certain lights, but it after- 

 w^ards became much brighter. When about three months old, 

 young Barnard's undergo a well-marked moult of the body 

 feather^, and a good deal more blue appears on tlie uack 

 and wings. . i 



The first Barnard's I ever saw alive came into my 

 possession in the sprnig of f'Jll, and were supposed to be 

 a pair, altuough I ajn raiher inclined to think that both were 

 females. As I wanted to see whether they could not be in- 

 duced to breed at complete liberty, I cut their wings, and 

 turned them into a large grass enclosure, hoping that by the 

 time the autumn moult had restored their powers of ilight 

 they would have been sufficiently reconciled to their surround- 

 ings to be content to remain near home. One of them was a 

 nice bird, and not particularly wild, as she had been kept for 

 some time in a cage; her companion, however, though brighter 

 in colour, was one of the smallest Barnard's I have ever seen. 

 He (or she) never looked really well, and when the nights 

 began to grow chilly in autumn, caught cold, and died, just as 

 I w^as considering the advisability of taking him indoors. Dur- 

 ing the course of the summer a big dealer in the north had 

 sent me a third Barnard, which he assured me he had had so 

 long that he felt quite sorry to part with it. It was very 

 wild, and died of septic fever almost immediately after its 

 arrival, the only consolation being that it did not communi- 

 cate the disease to anything else! About the same time, I Iiad, 

 however, made a more satisfactory purchase in a cock Bauer's 

 Parrakeet, which, like the hen Barnard's, had been k-ept for a 

 long time in close confinement before I bought him. Birds 

 which have been caged generally stay much better when turned 



