Mrs. Florence Verey—On Breeding Blackbirds for Colour 183


In her first season, 1932, she was mated to a normal cock which,

although already paired, left his own wife for the blonde beauty.


Three clutches were laid, all infertile. The hen was very fat, her

wing having been injured by the cat, and having insufficient exercise.

I built a large enclosure with natural grass, trees and bushes, where

she wintered into perfect condition, nested early, and hatched four

young, all normal, all reared. In three weeks another nest with six eggs

was completed, all hatched, two died, one being a cinnamon. The other

four had all greyish bars across the tails, one cock having grey barred

flights, and the other a cream feather on the shoulder. Third nest,

three eggs, one broken, two normal birds reared. So that in 1933 this

hen reared ten young, six cocks and four hens, and lost two, one being

a cinnamon.


I am now trying inbreeding to endeavour to fix the cinnamon

strain. The old hen is mated to the young cock with the barred tail

and shoulder mark. She hatched two young from three eggs on Easter

day. One very pale and one dark. The former died at six days and the

other left the nest in stormy weather and died of exposure. At this

time I was most extraordinarily fortunate in being given a nestling of

precisely the same shade as my old hen, and although quite four days

younger than the chick in the nest, I put it under Mistletoe, who did

not resent it, though very surprised, and took charge of the baby, both

cock and hen feeding it most carefully. It was very pleasing to see

how much care they took that the older nestling should have no undue

advantage over the smaller and weaker chick. I left it with them for

four days, and then took it in to finish by hand, when the other

chick died. It is now a very fine well-grown youngster. It was given

to me by a member of our local society, Mr. Drew, who, fortunately

for me, knew how anxious I was for another bird of that colour.


Mistletoe nested again very quickly, building her nest and laying

two eggs within 26 hours from the time I took the cinnamon away.

She laid five in all. Three hatched, one died, one cinnamon and one

normal doing well. At the time of writing they are seven days old.

A very interesting incident occurred which shows the homing instinct

of birds very strongly. I took a pair of ordinary Blackbirds that I had

bred from for experience in 1933, the hen being hand-reared in 1932,



