160



Correspondence



BREEDING THE YELLOW-BILLED CARDINAL


Sirs. —I see from the August number of the Magazine that

Capt. Rattigan has bred the Yellow-billed Cardinal, and that he is

under the impression that this has not occurred before in this country.

I bred the species in 1911, in my old aviaries. Two broods of two and

three youngsters respectively left the nest during the summer; beyond

providing a large number of insects, I had no difficulty at all with

my birds.


Bird-keepers will remember that this species was quite common

and cheap in those days, and I was much more interested in the hoped-

for breeding of a pair of Black-cheeked Cardinals ( P. nigrigenis), which

unfortunately did not materialize.


Mr. Temple clearly remembers the rearing of the young Yellow-

bills, but we neither of us knew that the occurrence was an unusual one.


M. Amsler.



THE INCUBATION PERIOD OF CRANES


Sirs,— The hatching of a young white-naped Crane in the Zoological

Gardens last spring is not the first case of a Crane breeding in the Zoo.

The Mantchurian Crane bred there in 1861 ( Proceedings , 1861, p. 369).

The incubation period of the white-naped Crane which bred at

the Gardens last spring was said to be thirty-five days from the laying

of the first egg. Blaauw gives thirty days, as noted in the Amsterdam

Zoological Gardens. He also says that, when his own Mantchurian

Cranes bred, the first chick was hatched on the thirty-first day after

the laying of the first egg. It almost looks as if the incubation period

varied in these birds to the extent of several days.


I have a pair of Mantchurian Cranes which have nested the last three

years. I made very careful notes in 1919, in wdiich year the female laid

the first egg on 28th April, and began to sit at midday that day. The

first chick was hatched on 1st June, the thirty-fourth day after the

laying of the first egg. Last year only one egg was hatched. If it was

the second egg laid, it hatched on the thirty-fourth day, but if it was the

first laid it did not hatch until the thirty-seventh day, which seems

improbable.



W. H. St. Quintin.



