on Sexing Parrakeets.



43



I have put the points in this order as seeming to me to be

the most reliable guides in that order.


To take the first point. I believe the beak of practically

every bird is an index to its entire nature and character. And sex is

shown more by the beak than by any other characteristic. In the

hen bird in most parrakeets, particularly those parrakeets with which

we are dealing', the beak of the hen is smaller, narrower, and more

tucked into the bird’s ’"face.” In the Rosella this is a very constant

and marked characteristic. The beak is altogether a more lady-like

and less dangerous looking appendage in the hen.


(2) With very few exceptions, it will be found that the hen

bird is smaller than the cock, but of course one may have a well-

developed hen and a poorly developed cock.


(3) In examining some dozens of Jiving birds, not only those

that have actually passed through my hands, but at the large dealers

and London Zoo, I came to the conclusion that there was a marked,

though not easily described, difference in the shape of the bird.

The hen bird was more kestrel shaped and slimmer with narrower

shoulders and the head more daintily and neatly set on than in the

cock. The neck, too, less well marked, and the head being propor¬

tionately smaller, the neck in the hen is a more graceful and

deliberate curve than in the cock bird. The head itself in many

parrakeets is flatter on the crown in the cock than in the hen.* This

point comes out nicely in Mr. Page’s “Aviary and Aviary Life,”

page 189, in which I should say tire nearer bird is undoubtedly the

hen and the other the cock. On page 207 of the same book we

have what one would, in absence of another bird to compare, call a

“ certain cock,” although in Bauer’s, Barnard’s, and others it is

rather hard to sex these birds unless one sees them side by side.


(4) Finally, we come to the colour. Generally speaking the

hen bird is decidedly duller and less plainly marked than the cock,

and in many species, e.g. the Redrumps, the colour is the great

characteristic, but in practising sexing birds we should try and ignore

colour as much as possible or one is apt to lose sight of the more



* Note “ How to Sex Cage Birds ” p. 106 “ the females of many of the

Parrots . . . have rounder heads ”—Mr. Page probably had his attention called

to the fact by this note, but I believe I had previously published it.—A.G.B.



