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shaped like one feather. In another the crest was divided into

three or four separate wavy plumes. Soon it was quite easy to

tell the cocks from the hens by their colouring. As the young

ones got older I began to give them seed—canary and millet—as

well as soft food. They were very fond of green food, lettuce,

watercress and rape seedlings, or a sod of fresh grass. Quails

delight in a mound of dry earth or sand to take a dust bath in.

I do not think these birds at all delicate after the first stages are

passed. I did not lose one that had got over the first few weeks

of its life.


My old hen seemed none the worse for having laid so

many eggs, she was always well and adtive. She must have laid

at least fifty eggs altogether, for some mouths afterwards we

found nine aggs in the Dove house, where she was first put in

the early part of the year. This clutch was laid in a wicker

nest basket very high up amongst the fir branches. I quite think

that Quails are not entirely ground birds if they have the chance

of getting in trees. All the nine young ones of the first two

broods used to spend most of their time sitting in the highest

fir boughs in the aviary.


The eggs are shaped like a Partridge’s and are rather large

for the size of the bird.


Of the fourteen Quails I bred, nine were cocks and five

hens. This year I hope to do better and avoid making so many

errors; truly in bird keeping (as in many other things) one

chiefly learns by sad experience; there is this consolation, the

lesson is generally well learnt.


[Since writing the above my hen quail has laid her first egg

on April 8th. I forgot to mention, it is as well to have a small

door made in the front of the wire run, so that if a chick is

exhausted in the run it can be taken out without trouble. Also

it is a good plan to have a small pane of glass let into the roof

of the inner shelter so that the sitting hen may be observed

without disturbing her.—R. A.]


[We are indebted to our Publisher for the loan of the block from

which the illustration accompanying this article, is printed.—E d.



AVICULTURAL NOTES.


By G. C. Porter.


I have seen it stated in the Magazine for 1S98 that the

Australian Crested Dove (Ocyphaps lophotcs), when showing off

to the hen, does not display itself like the species of Turtur



