THE



Bvtcultural Machine,


BEING THE JOURNAL OF THE


AVICULTURAL SOCIETY.



VOL. II. —No. 22. All rights reserved. AUGUST, 1896.



MY PASSERINE PARRAKEETS.


By O. E. Cresswele.


The progress which aviculture has made in the last few

years is evidenced by nothing so much as by the number of

birds which breed in European aviaries, some even in cages,

which twenty years ago had never been known to nest in

captivity. There always seems to me a double pleasure in

inducing my pets to breed ; for, firstly, it is interesting to every

lover of birds to watch their method of building, incubation,

and rearing their family; and, secondly, the fact of their

breeding is a pretty good proof that the birds are comfortable,

happy, and healthy.


For this reason, I think the story of the breeding of a

pair of Passerine Parrakeets (commonly called Blue-winged

Eove-birds) in a bell cage, 2iin. high and 13m. in diameter at

the base, may not be uninteresting to some members of our

Society. There may be some who have no regular aviary and

are obliged to keep their birds in cages, who are glad to know

what species may possibly in such circumstances reproduce their

kind.


I11 the summer of 1892, I bought a pair of these sweet

little Parrakeets. It never occurred to me that they might

breed in a cage, and, so far as I can recoiled!, I never gave them

a cocoanut husk till the following year. Their cage, through

the winter, was kept in a comfortable bird-room, but its inmates

were very quiet and undemonstrative. Through the lovely

summer of 1893 I changed their residence, and the cage was

daily carried out into the garden. They became very lively and

were specialty excited at hearing the sound of Swallows over¬

head, whose chattering much resembles their own ; and I saw

some signs of breeding. However, in the middle of September,

I went abroad, but heard, later on, that the hen had laid an egg.



