24


..this point I may not have had experience enough. I wonder

why dealers always ask such a high price for Hyacinthine

Macaws. They are not everybody's bird, for they can bend the

wires of an ordinary Macaw's cage with ease, but dealers will

ask for them double the price of a Spix, which is a far rarer

bird. They have one great advantage over other Macaws — they

are much quieter ; they can make a row, but don't often choose

to do it.


The Red and Yellow Macaw seems to me to be as good a

talker as the Blue and Yellow, but my bird was a hen, and

never learnt a word ; yet it always knew me. It was not uni>-

versally good-tempered. For the last eight or ten years of its

life it was at the Zoo, but on my rare visits it always recollected

me, and let me do just as I liked with it.


I do not think Macaws mind cold so long as they have

their liberty. I confess I do not understand what makes one

Parrot more susceptible to cold than another. I think I can say

which Parrots will not endure cold, and which will, but I do not

know why. Psittacus and Pceocephalus will not endure much,

Chry soils will — yet they are all tropical. Cockatoos will. Ivories

will not, though they come from the same islands.


Here I must, for the present, bring my observations to an

end. I think I ought to be rewarded by someone writing their

experiences of the Crimson and Green, and Military Macaws.


(To be co7iti7iued J .



BREEDING OF THE NECKLACED DOVE.


By Arthur G. Buti^er, Ph.D.


The Necklaced Dove (Turtur tigrhius) is found from

Burma through Malaysia southwards to the Moluccas. The

German name for it is Pearl-necked Dove ( PerlhalstdubchenJ ,

which appears to me to convey to the mind a more accurate idea

of the nuchal patch than the term " necklaced."


In 1894 I purchased what purported to be a pair of this

species and turned them out into my garden aviary : I however

soon discovered, from the fact that they were constantly dis-

puting and cooing to each other, that I had two cock birds. I

tried introducing a Collared Turtle Dove (Turhir risorhts) but

that also proved to be a male bird and became so aggressive that

I gave it away. In 1896 one Necklaced Dove killed the other by



