Breeding of the Yellow-fronted New Zealand Barrakeet 293


small and nimble mammal, particularly when, as is often the case, they

run rapidly and jerkily down the wire netting from top to bottom

of an aviary.


Their prevailing colour is green, paler on the breast ; a band just

above the beak and a patch on the flanks bright red ; fore part of the

crown golden-yellow ; some blue on the lower edge of the wings. Bill

a pretty silver, shading into black at the tip. Length : 9*6 inches.


A striking feature of the bird, usually omitted in book descriptions,

is the very brilliant red iris of the eye.


The hen is usually not only considerably smaller than her mate,

but has a much smaller, rounder, and more feminine-looking head.

So marked are these differences that it is quite easy to sex young birds

by their size immediately they leave the nest.


The Yellow-front seems always to have been a rare species ; in fact,

our Editor informed us on his last visit to the Keston Foreign Bird

Farm that he could not remember having seen a living specimen before ;

and Mr. Sydney Porter describes them as nowadays excessively rare in

their native land.


It appears to have been bred by only one aviculturist, Mr. Bouskill,

who first had a brood of young ones in 1898 ; though there is little

doubt Yellow-fronts would, if given the chance, prove themselves no

less prolific than their cousin the Red-fronted, which at one time

seems to have been very extensively kept and bred in this country.


The first bird of this species, a solitary hen, arrived here in the late

spring of 1933 and, as there seemed little prospect of ever obtaining

a proper husband for her, she was mated to a cock Blue-wing since

these two Parrakeets are almost identical in size.


She and the Blue-wing quickly became attached to each other,

and the cock was continually seen feeding the hen, but the four eggs,

on which she sat her full time, proved to be unfertile.


Soon after this a mate of her own kind was unexpectedly obtained,

and was at once put in the aviary in place of the Blue-wing. Curiously

enough, the hen did not seem at all overjoyed at being presented with

a husband of her own race, and refused to go to nest again, shortly

afterwards falling into a heavy moult. This did not augur very hopefully

for successful breeding results the next year, and to make matters



