The Breeding of Cactus Conures. 41


THE BREEDING OF CACTUS CONURES.


Conurus cactorum.


By Dr. L. LOVELL-KEAYS.


Conures have one great drawback. They are noisy ! My

first pair of Conures were Quakers and the noise was so disturbing

that I passed them on to a friend, since when I have not seen

nearly as much of my friend, and my wife makes horrid inuendos.

But I have long got hardened to mere screechings, and in April of

this year I saw in a paper, more or less devoted to “the fancy,” an

advertisement telling of “ Yellow-bellied Conures” for one sovereign.

I sent for these rare sounding Conures and it took me some time to

find out what they were. My description and the books’ description

seemed to bear very little relationship to one another. However, a

visit to the London Zoo. at once settled the question. I found I

only had Cactus Conures. I turned them out into my large parra-

keet aviary — a very rough affair with practically no shelter but a

very liberal allowance of eaves to compensate for this. En passant

I should like to emphasive the many and great advantages of eaves.

They are very cheap to construct and very snug and the birds appre¬

ciate them very much indeed. I have them made with a decidedly

sharp pitch and a board inside, thus : —


I hang my nesting barrels under the eaves

and supply a good assortment of stiff branches

for the birds to roost on. But I found that one

pair of birds would monopolise a whole length of

eave, so I had it divided into “stalls” by short

vertical lengths of board about two feet apart.


I take no credit for inventing eaves, but I have never seen another

aviary specialise in eaves as mine do and they are an excellent

device. [My aviaries have always had broad eaves.—E d.]


To describe the Cactus Conures very roughly, I should say

they were a light olive green above with decided bluish green

primaries and tail feathers. The head, neck and upper part of the

breast is brownish, but the brown is very distinctly purplish in

tone. By acetevlene gas light the brown appears pure violet. The

under surface of the body is a dull yellow. Hence my bird-friend’s

cognomen of Yellow-bellied Conure.



