4// righis reserved. August, 1917. 



BIRD NOTES: 



THE 



JOURNAL OF THE FOREIGN BIRD CLUB. 



The Breeding of the Green Fruit Pigeon. 



Sphenoccrcns sphenums. 

 By W. Shore Daily. 



A few ^veeks ago I sent you a few notes on my Green 

 Fruit Pigeons, and remarked therein that I had neither seen 

 them on the ground, nor drinking water. Since writing those 

 notes, my birds have, strange to say. elected to go to nest on the 

 ground, and are regularly seen at the water vessel Of course 

 the conditions at the present time are as different as possible 

 to what they were in the winter. Xow the weather is extremely 

 hot. and. besides that, they have a hungry young one to feed, so 

 a certain quantity of water is necessary to them. but. I still think 

 that in cool weather they can do very well without it. At the 

 end of April the hen began to do a good deal of singing, to 

 which the cock by no means responded, so. as our Editor was 

 at that time advertising an odd hen, I decided to secure it. and 

 see what a change of wives would do. The advent of the new 

 bird caused considerable excitement in the aviary. Both birds 

 and especially the hen. bullied the newcomer terribly; so much 

 so in fact, that I had to remove her. The new hen. although 

 not such a fine bird as my first female, was wonderfully tame, 

 and would come on my hand when called. She was evidently 

 most anxious to go to nest. so. as the other two still disagreed, 

 1 decided to substitute her in the place of the other hen. This 

 substitution scheme worked a good deal better than some of 

 those arranged by our i)resent military authorities. As soon as 

 the new hen was introduced to the cock, she made most violent 

 love to him. and mating at once took place. The'next day they 

 selected a building site and the day after an tgg was laid. The 



