THE



Hvicultural illbagasme,


BEING THE JOURNAL OF THE


AVICULTURAL SOCIETY.



VaL. LV. — No. 41. All rishts reserved. MARCH, 1898.


NESTING OF THE GOLDEN-CROWNED

PARRAKEET OF NEW ZEALAND.


( CyanorhampMis auricepsj.


By Gko. K. Bouskh,!,.


It was late in the season to allow my Golden-crowns to

nest, and the only portion of my aviary which I could allot to

them at the time was occupied by a pair of Turquoisines and

a pair of Budgerigars, the latter of which had young ; but

before these had left the husk the Golden-crowns had begun

to prospect on their own account ; and as I did not want the

young Budgerigars to be turned out of their nest, I decided to

put up another husk, and it was in this that the Golden-

crowned Parrakeets settled down to nest.


The hen built a cup-shaped nest, using the fibre off the

inside of the cocoanut-husk, and in this she laid five pure white

eggs, which were very round, and, I think, large for the size of the

bird (they almost equalled in size the ^%% of the Rosella). The

female alone incubated the eggs, and a most dutiful parent she

was, rarely leaving her nest except to be fed by her mate.

Incubation lasted about twenty-one days from the laying of the

first Q.'g^. As I stated in my last paper, the first egg was laid on

the 24th of October, and the fifth on the 28th : this would fix

the time for hatching to be about the 14th of November. You

can imagine how anxious I was when the 5th of November

arrived, for my neighbours had their children to please and

could not be expected to study my birds. I was greatly afraid

that the illuminations and flashes of light would frighten the

hen bird off her nest, and so let the precious eggs get cold ; to

obviate this, I covered the glass portion of the aviary with dust

sheets ; the loud reports I could not keep out, and so far as noise

was concerned, the birds had to take their chance. I have read



