38 The Duchess of Wellington—Breeding Gouldian Finches


In fact, her one object when out is to find a nest, any box is a great

attraction, but so far the Greys I have had with her have all turned

out to be hens, and she will at once attack them. Male Greys seem hard

to get. I don’t want her plumage hurt, so that makes me fear a fight.


Then, different again is the large Pesquet’s Parrot, but I believe

that Lord Tavistock has written on this wonderful bird. It was found

it could not stand out of doors even in summer, and as my aviaries

are indoors, and heated in winter, it was sent to me. On arrival at

my house it took three days to make up its mind to come out of its box,

which had been placed in an aviary by itself. It had been very

frightened on the journey, and when it is frightened it lifts its voice,

and the more it did this the more the porters looked at it, until on

arrival it was shouting loud and strong, and I may add its voice is like

a donkey’s bray ! Now it is pretty good unless the “ inner man ”

requires attention, and this has to be attended to at once by order of

“ The General ”, as we call him. He looks rather like a Vulture, and

eats only bread and milk, fruit, and practically the same food as a Lory.

Given a bunch of grapes he holds them in his claws and sucks out all

the juice with his flesh-coloured tongue, which is not brush-tipped as

in the Lories. He is a very heavy bird, scarlet and black, -and is in

perfect plumage, and really a dear old thing. I can rub him, and he

likes lots of petting. He tries hard now to talk, and has a very deep

voice quite unlike that of any other Parrot that I have heard. This

bird, I believe, was the first ever imported, a second Pesquet imported

in 1921 having gone to America ; mine remains the first and only one

in Europe.



BREEDING GOULDIAN FINCHES


By The Duchess op Wellington


The nesting of Gouldian Finches has been frequently recorded in

the pages of the Avicidtural Magazine ; but we are so earnestly adjured

to send accounts of the events which take place in our aviaries that

I think it worth while to give details of the successful rearing of a brood

of Gouldians in my aviary last autumn.


The parents are both black-headed, and had been for some time in



