A Novice's Aviaries.



7 *



know that there were young ones in the nest in A on June 14th

and in B on June 25th. In A three young ones left the nest on

July 5th, and in B five left the nest on July 15th. Now a curious

thing about these young birds was that, whereas the whole five

in B were green all over , in A one was green and the other two

were marked with red almost as plainly as their parents. I found

when the young leave the nest they all sit in a row at the highest

point of the aviary, packed as close together as possible. They

were all terribly wild and the moment I went near the place to

feed them the young ones would fly madly about the place till

they were absolutely exhausted. I have come to the conclusion

that a young Parrot Finch is about as tough as they make

them.


I was away from home for five weeks from August 2nd,

and on my return found that the old hen and two of the young

ones in A had died, but all those in B were flourishing and

almost as red on the head and tail as their parents. The pair in

B showed signs of wanting to nest again, I therefore removed the

odd cock (the widower) from A and put the five young ones from

B into A with the other young bird : thus six young ones were

altogether in A and the original pair in B.


The behaviour of these young birds astonished me. It

must be remembered that five of them left the nest 011 July 15

and the other on July 5. Four of these young birds paired and

each pair built a nest, and on Sept, inid (when they were about

three months old) there were five eggs in each nest. They did

not attempt to sit, however, so I removed all the eggs. I gave

two of them to a friend in Eton who put them under a hen

Gouldian Finch, and she hatched them both but would not feed

them. Surely this is early precocity.*


The original pair in B nested again and five strong young

ones left the nest on Oct. 28 and are doing well, f


I ought to mention that I have the electric light laid on in

the aviaries and can turn it on from the house. This is done at

six o’clock every morning and enables the old birds to feed their

young.



The letter appearing- on page 52, was written some weeks before publication,

t The old birds are now (Nov. 14,) sitting again on five eggs.



