262



Blue Budgerigars.



BLUE BUDGERIGARS.


By John W. Marsden, F.Z.S.


I am always interested in Dr. Butler’s articles, and this month

he refers to Blue Budgerigars. I should like to state a few of my

ideas on their origin, etc., if permitted, in our Magazine. Lately I

have been reading back numbers, and I find in 1900 correspondence

re admitting Canaries into the Magazine (which I should not like i,

and I fear Blue Budgerigars are in the same category.


In an article I sent to June ‘ Bird Notes ’ last year, I said

I bred, after three seasons of selection, from a green hen (■§ blue,

§ green, \ yellow) two very fine blues. Now, it seems to me that

what we should do is to get rid of the yellow in the common

green. If we take the yellow r away from the yellow parts we get

white, and by taking the yellow from the green part we get blue,

because blue x yellow = green, therefore, green — yellow = blue; so

in using yellow to produce blue I should only use the very palest

and washed-out ones I could possibly get.


As far as I know, the origin of the blue is unknown, but I

think the breeder may have bred an albino, and, in trying to per¬

petuate the whites by inbreeding, produced the blues. I may be

wrong, but in any case it seems to me the great thing is to eliminate

the yellow. I cannot help thinking that generations ago the original

colour of the Budgerigar was blue, and the yellow has been developed

as a more protective colour from the sun. Mr. Millsum and the

Rev. J. M. Patterson both agree that blues must be bred and kept

in the shade. In the common greens the nest plumage is more or

less blue, and we know that in all Nature the colour of the young

indicates the original colour of the bird or beast. Then, again, blue

or grey-blue appears to be a primary colour of Nature. Therefore,

it seems quite possible that if Budgerigars w T ere originally blue, the

yellow (a protective colour) came in and produced the green, according

to the rule of the survival of the fittest.


When breeding birds, Mendel’s law does not appear to work

out unless the birds are equally prepotent. I should very much like

to know if a pure blue has been bred from a blue and a pure-bred

green ; I have not heard of one. I remember many years ago



