26



NOTES ON BREEDING BUDGERIGARS.


By Emily Brampton.


It has been suggested to me by a member of the Council

that I should write an account of my success in breeding

Budgerigars. Though they are common birds, and the majority

of them will breed very easily under suitable circumstances,

success is not universal, and my experiences may serve to

encourage others, who have failed so far, to go on and prosper in

spite of difficulties.


Budgerigars were the first foreign birds I ever possessed.

At that time I was not a member of the Avicultural Society, but

having read that “ Budgerigars are as easily bred as Canaries,”


I was fired with the ambition to try my ’prentice hand. I had

already been very successful with Canaries, and pictured myself

buying a pair of Budgerigars and seeing nest after nest of young

ones climbing and flying about my aviary. Alas! I did not

dream of the four years of disappointment that stood between me

and success, but “ its dogged does it,” and, when fortune smiled

at last, I forgot all previous disappointments.


Consulting my authority, I found that she who would rear

Budgerigars must procure “ imported ” birds to start with.

Strangely enough, the dealer to whom I applied had

several “imported” birds in his stock, and I returned

home in triumph with two pairs. It was April, so I

turned them out into an aviary by themselves, supplying them

with everything the heart of bird could desire—and then waited

impatiently for the young birds to appear.


The aviary was a disused summer house with small flight;

—it was liberally supplied with perches, natural branches, and

cocoanut husks, and the birds were fed on canary and millet,

water and grass; with sand and mortar in profusion. I grudged

those birds nothing, and yet they showed the basest ingratitude

and would not even look at a nest. They did not seem very

clever at flying either, and deep down in my heart was the doubt

whether they were as large or as bright in colour as Budgerigars

should be. Still the dealer had warranted them “ imported,”

so they must be all right, and I preached patience to myself

and said, “ Next Spring they will begin ! ” Spring came and went,

and I was still hoping; learning slowly and painfully through

deaths caused by apoplexy, egg binding and mice, and still buying

“ imported ” birds at many times their real value. And so the

fourth season came round, and, though I had lost one of my hens,



