io6



Miss Rosie Ai.dkrson,



either killed or injured themselves. The Barbary is very useful

as a foster-parent, and several times when a pair of rare doves

have begun to sit badly, I have changed the eggs with those of a

Barbary. The latter get so tame that they will not object to

your doing this in the least. One little hen I had never even

stirred from the nest, and let me feel among her feathers for her

own eggs, and after I had put the other eggs in their place she

would give them a little tuck in with her beak, as if to help me.

Once I bred some beautiful hybrids with a hen Barbary and

a cock British Turtle Dove, and one of these hybrids (after

I had parted with it) bred in turn with another hybrid, a

Barbary-Necklace.


Almost every spring I find voting Barbary Doves deserted

by their parents in the garden. It is no use trying to get

another pair to take to one of these poor little things, for when

it runs to them for food it only meets with rebuffs. So then I

have no other course left but to “bring them up by hand,” like

poor little Pip in “Great Expectations.” It is not a difficult

task, though hardly a pleasant one, but one cannot see the little

bird starve, which it would do if help were not given it.


THE HALF-COLLARED TURTLE.


Tiutur semitorquatus.


This is a very fine, well-shaped dove, the chief fault

being that it is too large for a small aviary. In colour it is a rich

vinous pink, shading into drab on the back and wings. The

lorehead is whitish grey—this being more distinct in the bird

that I take to be the male. The eyes are orange, and a broad

black collar goes half-way round the back of the neck. I had a

pair of these doves sent me, with four other kinds, from Africa

last March. The}' began to nest in May and have been doing so

practically ever since. Both doves are excellent parents, and

are a strange mixture of boldness and timidity. They were

constantly being driven off from one part of the aviary by a

Necklace Dove (a bird much smaller in size) yet, on the other hand,

they beat off with their wings one of my large Masked Parrakeets

when he was climbing the wire to see if they had any eggs to

dispose of. “ Jack ” has held them in respect (if not in affection)



