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A PROLIFIC CALIFORNIAN QUAIL.


Sir, —Having kept and reared many of these handsome birds during

the last few years I found the number of eggs laid per nest to vary from

12 to 30.


I only have one pair this year. The cock is an old bird (the first

foreign bird I had, and was given to me by a friend to start me in this

hobby) the hen is a last year’s bird.


She has laid sixty-seven eggs, one being deposited each day without

intermission. I have sixty in an incubator, two were left in her nest, one

was laid and broken in the basket on arrival here (so in all probability this

was not the first she had laid) and four have been laid about the aviary and

broken.


I think this should be a record number. There can be no mistake as

I have only the one hen. Arthur. Giee.



DISEASED BEAKS; MEDICINES FOR BIRDS.


Sir, —In the March and April numbers some correspondence

appeared about a contagious cheesy growth which forms at the base of the

mandibles in Gouldian-finches. In my experience this disease is not

confined to Gouldians, but it may attack other birds who may happen to be

lodged in the same cage or aviary as the Gouldians. If taken in time, the

disease is certainly curable. The growth should first be saturated with

a four per cent, solution of cocaine and then scraped with a blunt knife;

hot or very cold water w'ill soon stop any bleeding, and then the affected

parts should be well dusted with equal parts of powdered boracic and

iodoform. For a few days after this, the beaks should be bathed twice

daily with boracic lotion, and the powdered application repeated. It

might also be necessary to repeat the scraping operation if the growth

has not been effectually removed the first time. Any respectable chemist

will supply the medicinal preparations required.


Chemicae Food. —There are many, no doubt, who, like myself, have

with advantage used this preparation in their aviaries during the moulting

season or when any of the birds have appeared out of condition. Lately, I

have been using instead Allen and Hanbury’s “ Byno-Phospliates ” (one

teaspoonful mixed with a gill of water). The birds like this combination

better (being really a malted chemical food), and besides, it has not the

constipating effects on the bowels like the older preparation.


- Jas. Geo. Myean.


BLUE MOUNTAIN LORIKEETS.


Sir,—I note some correspondence on the feeding of this species.

Perhaps I may claim to have been as successful as most people in keeping

one of these birds in health.


One of my sons brought a hen home from Sydney seven or eight

years ago, and she is still alive and well. She is fed on both hard and soft

food, and has always a supply of canary seed, but does not care for any

other kind. Every day we give her either bread-and-milk or milk pudding

with plenty of sugar; and two or three times a w’eek she has a bit of lettuce

or groundsel : we give her, moreover, an unlimited supply of water, both

for drinking and bathing.



