Stray Notes.



168



STRAY NOTES.



The first series of Notes on Cage Birds (18S2) seems now to be a

decidedly scarce book, and we doubt whether many of onr members

possess copies ; it contains, however, some very interesting records of the

achievements of British aviculturists of some twenty-five years ago. The

various letters are mostly signed by initials or noms-de-plume, and no dates

are given. One writer tells of the arrival of a fine and healthy stock of

the Swift Lorikeet ( Lathamus discolor), several of which he himself kept

and found that they lived well on a diet of seed, boiled rice sweetened

with honey or sugar, and green food, though they appeared to do equally

well on seed alone. When shall we have an opportunity of studying this

beautiful species again ?



Another writer tells of the unsuccessful nesting of a pair of Carolina

Conures ( Conuropsis carolinensis), a species which, unfortunately, appears to

be fast approaching extinction. I11 going round his aviaries one morning

Captain Nicholl discovered an egg in a corner behind a dead stump of a

tree, which he describes as about the size and colour of a pigeon’s. The

following morning there was a second, and on the next two mornings a

third and a fourth.


“ During the time the eggs were being laid the cock Carolina did not

go near the nest, but, from the fifth day, he, together with the hen, sat

continuously. The two birds never left the nest, except to feed, for three

weeks, not even moving -when their food was brought to them in the

morning ; so I fully expected to see, some day, young birds instead of

eggs, but I was disappointed, and, 01: examining the eggs found they were

all addled.”


Again referring to this interesting collection of letters on avicultural

matters, we find an account of the successful breeding in captivity of

Swainson’s Lorikeet ( Trichoglossus novce-hollandicz), which makes the

second authentic instance we are aware of, of young of this species being

reared to maturity in this country ; the other being the now well-known case

at Blackpool.* The pair of “ Blue Mountains” were kept in a small aviary

of which they were the only occupants, and their owner remarks:—“For

nesting, I had a box 14m. long, gin. high, ioin. wide, into which I fitted a

cork spout, the length of the box ; at one end a hole was cut, and all round

covered with cork. The first indication of nesting commenced in February,

and in about twenty-one days I heard the young were hatched. At the end



C.f. Avic. Mag-. Vol. VIII., p. 167.



