6



J. Delacour—Bird Notes from Cleres



White Rheas and the same number of grey ones, always taking the

chicks away from the male parent as soon as they were born, then

putting them into a chicken house heated by a coal brooder. We

hardly ever lose any in this way. I have one male and two female

Darwin’s Rheas, a very rare species in captivity. In 1930 one hen

laid six eggs on which the cock sat for weeks in the rain ; the eggs

were clear, and the poor bird became so exhausted that he died

shortly after. Fortunately the Duke of Bedford kindly replaced him.

In 1931 one hen laid early in April a clutch of eight eggs, while the

other one was laying many undersized eggs with no yolks. The new

cock sat and eventually hatched two chicks, very pretty in their pearl-

grey and black down, with shortish bill, neck, and legs. Unfortunately,

by mistake, they were given wet green food with the result that one

soon died ; the other one somehow recovered but became rickety,

and did not survive more than three months. I hope to be more

successful next season.


My Pheasant collection is more or less complete. I have Argus,

Rheinart’s and four species of Polyplectron : Palawan, Bronze-tailed,

Germain’s and Ghigi’s Grey ; a pair of the latter gave, this season,

eight clutches of two eggs, rearing six young. We also reared to full

size one Rheinart, for the first time in Europe, another dying at ten

weeks of a sudden attack of roup. The hen, which had been kept out

of doors the whole winter, started laying on 3rd May, again on 22nd May

and 12th June. Each time the second egg was laid from the perch

at night and broken. Incubation lasts twenty-five days. The chicks

have very showy white lines on the sides of the back and remind one

much in their ways of the young of Polyplectron. I had a pair of

Bulwer’s Pheasants, but the cock died suddenly and I do not like the

look of the hen. I find that the Fireback group do not do well at

Cleres and it is not worth while keeping them there, although I still

possess pairs of the rare Borneo Crestless and'of my own Fireback

[Lophura delacouri). But I now intend having them kept for me in

the sunny south of France.


Since 1928 I have kept a pair of the rare Lewis’s Pheasants ( Gennaeus

lewisi), a very dark species of the silver group, discovered that same

year on the mountains of Cambodia. In 1930 the hen laid four



