104 Birds I Have Kept. 



does not, as one writer has maintained, "lay over", that is, 

 bring out a pair of young ones, then when these are a week 

 or so old, lay again, and so on; thus accounting for the fact 

 of young birds of very different sizes being not unfrequently 

 found in the same nest: but the fact of the incubation com- 

 mencing with the first egg is quite sufficient to account for 

 the eldest being much larger than the youngest in cases, not 

 at all uncommon, where five, six, or even seven eggs have 

 been laid. 



The young Budgerigars do not gape, but the old ones take 

 their beaks into their own, and the nestlings feed themselves 

 on the half-digested seeds which the parents have the faculty 

 of regurgitating for their beriefit: the duration of the young 

 birds' stay in the nest, as well as the rapidity, or slowness, 

 of their growth, depends mainly on the weather; about six 

 weeks is the average time in this country, though I have 

 had young Budgerigars that left their birth-place both con- 

 siderably before and after the time mentioned. 



Budgerigars, it has been asserted, will not breed until they 

 have been at least two years in this country: but this state- 

 ment is decidedly incorrect: for I have had some of these 

 birds that laid within a fortnight of my turning them into 

 my bird-room, and when I bought them they were quite 

 recently imported from Australia. Budgerigars are very pre- 

 cocious; some that were hatched in my aviary paired among 

 themselves, laid, and brought up young ones before they had 

 moulted their own nest feathers! but the young ones thus 

 prematurely brought into the world, were undersized, weak, 

 and dingy in colour. 



A cocoa-nut husk is perhaps the best nest than can be 

 provided for the Budgerigar: some specimens persistently 

 refusing to breed in anything else. I have had brood after 

 brood of five or six fine healthy young birds turn out of 

 the same husk in a twelvemonth: still many of these birds 

 are not at all particular, and will make themselves quite at 



