on Morality in Birds.



327



has become insignificant; nor does the domestic cat have much

effect in checking the inbreeding of birds from the same nest,

for when she discovers a nest of young birds she kills the whole

of them, but rarely eats any.


Now although, as I have said already, male birds are per¬

fectly willing to accept any female as a wife, no matter what

relationship she may bear to them, I have had strong evidence in

the past few years that the hens are by no means so complacent,

and that a mother resents all amatory advances by her son, as also

a daughter does from her father. In February 1906 I purchased

what looked like a very fine pair of Red-headed Gouldian

Finches, both sexes with the scarlet extending over the crown,

lores, cheeks, and ear-coverts, and I hoped to have bred from

this pair a fine family of Poephila mirabilis. I was not then

aware that the hen only attains to the colouring of the cock, as

regards the amount of red on the face, in old age. Both were

old birds and, though in excellent health up to the daj^ before

their death, the hen died on May 2nd and the cock two days

later. I therefore had to breed with a hen P. mirabilis which in

1905 had shown just a trace of red on the head, but which had

produced a male youngster with the full colouring of the Red¬

headed variety ; she had a little more red on her face in 1906,

and still more in 1907, when the Black-headed husband was

foolish enough to break his wing and die. I11 1908, when the

amount of red on the head of the female was quite respectable,

it occurred to me to see whether she would breed with the son

born in 1905 ; I therefore turned them out together. However

whenever the male bird attempted any flirtation with his mother,

she flew at him, pecked him viciously and chased him to the

other end of the aviary : I kept them outside until after the

commencement of the early frosts, but without result, and the

hen died in January 1909.


In 1905 I bred one female hybrid between the Grey-winged *

Ouzel and hen English Blackbird, and this bird (together with

one of the cocks bred in 1906) I retained. In 1909 I thought I

would see whether, by pairing up this female with her father, I

could get young reverting to Morula boulboul. I gave them a

small aviary to themselves, hung up a large nest-box in one



