The Budgerigar. 103 



The plumage of the young is greyer on the neck and 

 shoulders, and less vividly green on the breast and back than 

 in the case of their parents, while the undulations of the 

 neck feathers are continued all over the head; a juvenile type 

 which is sometimes simulated in very old specimens. 



Some writers have had a great deal to say about ''mani- 

 pulated birds"; that is, males whose blue noses were turned 

 brown by the application of lunar caustic to the cere, for 

 the purpose of fraudulently palming them off on customers 

 as females. If ever such a paltry fraud was really perpetrated, 

 it certainly is more likely to have been done by unprincipled 

 ''amateurs", than by importers and dealers, who cannot afford 

 to play fast and loose with their reputation: but I am in- 

 clined to think the notion had its rise in the imagination of 

 an excessively suspicious person, and never had any foundation 

 in fact, for the simple reason that it would not "pay." 



On the other hand, it is extremely dif&cult at times to 

 determine whether a given number of young Budgerigars are 

 really cocks or hens; 1 have myself picked out a couple of 

 what I thought to be males, from the bluish plum colour 

 of their ceres, caged them by themselves, and after a few 

 weeks found that they were undoubtedly hens, not only from 

 the fact that their noses had become quite brown, but because 

 they laid some eggs on the bottom of their cage. 



Like most of the Parrot family, Budgerigars in their wild 

 state bring up their young ones in holes in trees, making no 

 nest, but la5-ing their five or six white eggs on the bare wood. 

 Although I have kept these birds for years, I cannot say 

 with certainty how long they take to incubate, but the best 

 authorities on the subject consider that the young are hatched 

 in fifteen or sixteen days: the fact of the hen sometimes 

 commencing to sit when she has laid her first eg^, and 

 sometimes not until several have Iteen deposited, introduces a 

 considerable element of uncertainty into the matter: it is, 

 however, quite certain, in my opinion, that the Budgerigar 



