268



Dr. L. Lovell-Keays,



seen to be realised. The brilliant orange-red beak makes a striking

contrast to the rest of the colours and the long narrow yellowish

tail adds an air of distinction to the bird. The hen bird is painfully

sombre in colour. A uniform dull green from head to tail with a

plain black ring round the neck. Not even a red beak brightens the

general colour scheme. To look at she is about as disappointing a

bird as you could find in the land of parrakeets. No exquisite emerald

green ring adorns my lady’s neck. Undoubtedly nature intended she

should be simply and solely a household drudge.


I obtained my cock bird some years ago at Jamrach’s. He

was not much to look at and I acquired him for the very modest

sum of 30/-. However, in a good-sized aviary with a carpet of

sweet-tasting grass, he turned out a perfect bird and won great

honours for his owner at the International Bird Show in 1914.


When in 1915 I decided to give up keeping birds I advertised

it for sale. I had never been able to hear of a hen and didn’t

believe one existed in England. But one November morning the

post brought a letter from Canon Dutton offering me a hen Malabar

in exchange for a hen blossom-head. Could ever an offer be more

generous? It would have been a privilege to have given him the

blossom-head. Nevertheless, he insisted on sending me the hen

Malabar in exchange. The bird had been kept in a temperature

of 65° F. and he advised me to keep it in a bird room until spring.

Now my experience of ring-necks is that they are almost as hardy

as the polar bear, and in January I turned her out into a well-

sheltered but open-air aviary to take her chance. She never ruffled

a feather and by February she was house-hunting. I could see that

she could not find what she wanted out of, at least, a dozen barrels,

so I put a 9-inch barrel up under some eaves. This pleased her

ladyship immensely and very quickly she took possession. I have

forgotten the exact date, but at the beginning of March she had laid

two eggs in the selected barrel. They were, like all parrakeets eggs,

roundish and white, also slightly polished. Incubation lasted as near

as I can tell just about three weeks. During this trying period my

lord, did nothing but squawk — (his vocal efforts are not a

screech but a true squawk) — impressing on the other parrakeets

w T hat a fine fellow he was and pointing out what a mag-



