on diamond doves.



343



for a cock. In buying it is as well not to buy birds of the current

year’s breeding unless you get them from a good judge of the sexes,

or from someone willing to make good any error, as the colour of

a young bird is very like a ben, until it is fairly adult, and you may

buy a young, or poorly coloured cock, in mistake for a hen.


Even those who have kept them for long may make a mistake

when old and young birds are Hying mixed together. At the end of

last nesting season I was catching up about ten young birds to send

away in pairs. Earlier on I had tied a piece of dark wool round one

leg of each of the old birds to mark them, as I did not want to send

away my favourite stock birds. But unnoticed by me one very good

hen had lost the piece of wool off her leg, and this was only found

out when the catching up was completed. Some of the young birds

I had also marked (each aviary with a different colour) but not all,

and which was my old hen I could not tell. At last I thought I

had a brilliant idea, the hen had been sitting so much through the

season that her tail was certain to be worn, so I picked out a bird

with a very poor tail, and feeling sure I was right sent off the other

ten birds with a quiet mind. But some time afterwards my supposed

hen developed into a cock, much to my disappointment, as besides

the loss of an especially good bird I had lost all chance of breeding

diamonds in that house for the season—for hens cannot be had

just when you happen to want them.


Of course, the best safeguard is to move your young ones

early, but if other nesting is going on in the same aviary it is not

always convenient, and the diamonds themselves have very short

intervals between each nest. A good pair will have quite four or

five nests during one season, and rear one or two young ones nearly

every time. The greatest number of young birds I have bred from

one pair during the season has been seven.


I suppose most of our readers have known and kept the

diamond dove, but as there may be a few that have not done so it may

be as well to give a very brief description of it. The length is about

7i inches, 4 inches comprising the slender shaft-like tail. The head,

neck and upper breast are soft ash grey, the nape of the neck and

back are mouse-brown, the under parts pure white. The upper

parts of the wings are a darker grey than the head, and are dotted



