Breeding of the occipital blue pie.



367



Well I don’t think most of our members will be much

interested in these matters, so I will bring my remarks to a close;

but in conclusion I must express the conviction that so long as we

are bringing to light Nature’s secrets, we must really be a Scientific

Society, whatever our friends the systematic workers may think or

say to the contrary.



BREEDING OF THE OCCIPITAL BLUE PIE.


Urocisscc occipitalis.


By Maurice Amsler, M.B.


It is not often that the aviculturist has the luck to obtain a

pair of comparatively rare birds in full breeding condition when the

season is already in full swing. Such however was my good fortune

this year, when I heard of a pair of blue pies who had made an

attempt at breeding in a large cage. After some correspondence and

a day or two of waiting, their advent at Eton was heralded one

morning by loud and raucous cries.


I have never kept large predatory birds and I was inclined to

expect at least one good bite in the handling of the new arrivals,

but they had evidently been told by their former owner that they

were to be transferred to a happier home and that they must

therefore be on their best behaviour with their new owner. The

male bird allowed me to handle him and to place a copper ring on

one leg; he may have looked upon it as a form of marriage ceremony,

but in reality I put it on in order to be able to distinguish the two

birds more readily.


Books tell us that the female has a much more powerful bill,

I cannot see any such difference in size ; the colour however is

quite distinct, being coral red in the male and orange in the female.


The aviary prepared for the pies is only a modest affair,

some 18 feet long by 3 feet wide and 7 feet high ; it has a shelter at

one end with a partly glazed front. In this shelter I had prepared

a beautiful nesting site of wire netting and broom branches, nicely

hidden on every side except on that facing the glass front of the

shelter. The birds would of course build here and I should be able



