350 Breeding of Bluebreast x Crimson-eared Waxbill Hybrids.


species of the family ; not exactly melodious, but at the same time

pleasing in its wildness, transporting one to rocky glens and streams

which well up above them amidst alpine mosses.



BREEDING OF BLUEBREAST x

CRIMSON-EARED WAXBILL HYBRIDS.


By Maurice Amsler, M.D.


On April 7th of this year I turned out from their winter

quarters into my small finch aviary three Blue-breasted Waxbills and

a hen Cordon Bleu. The former I knew consisted of two cocks, and

a hen; they soon settled down amicably, one of the cock Bluebreasts

obviously having plighted his troth to the hen Cordon Bleu.


On June 10th I found a typical spherical nest in a privet bush

and on the 15th it contained four or five eggs and one of the Blue-

breasts was sitting. It never entered my mind until later that this

bird was the Bluebreast who had mated off with the hen Cordon

Bleu. On July 5th, I found that three eggs had hatched out, the

young birds being about half-fledged.


About this time I added to the aviary a cock Cordon Bleu

who was the means of my discovering the mixed parentage of the

young bird. Immediately he had got over the surprise of once again

seeing sunshine, trees and grass, he made up to the female Cordon

Bleu, who treated him with absolute contempt whilst her blue

breasted mate knocked his would-be rival off his perch and chased

him round the aviary. I then noticed that the Cordon Bleu hen’s

tail was bent to one side, as occurs with all long-tailed birds of this

genus after sitting for a few days.


I watched carefully and soon found that she was feeding the

three chicks already mentioned. Even so, she might possibly have

been feeding the young of a true pair of Blue-breasted Waxbills, but

on July 11th, the day before the three hybrids flew, I found in

another bush a similar nest containing eggs and being incubated by

the other cock and hen Bluebreasts ; their eggs are fertile and, I

believe, have now hatched.


The nest is rather high and I cannot examine it again with¬

out causing a good deal of disturbance.



