Correspondence



17



grew rapidly and in about fourteen days, left the nest. The quickness with

which this bird feathered and left the nest is remarkable.


It stayed in the vicinity of the nest being fed by the parents. It grew

rapidly but the head was coloured a dark tan in contrast to the red of the

parents. The rest of the colouring was similar to that of the adult birds.

The young one left the nest on 25th December, 1930, and is now almost full

size, although the head is still dark tan.


The parent birds were fed the usual mixture of seeds and in addition

green grass seeds and an ample supply of gentles and egg and biscuit meal.

Without the egg and biscuit and gentles, I think it is doubtful if these birds

could be reared successfully.


A. E. Henley.



MASKED LOVEBIRDS


Several pairs of these birds were imported but unfortunately owing to

disasters on the voyage, only two pairs arrived.


According to the information in books, they are supposed to settle down

and breed at once but this was not my experience. It was several months

after they were flying in the open before there was any sign whatever that

they were going to nest.


They chose a piece of punga log which had been hollowed out at one

end to about 6 inches in diameter and then boarded up. The opening

to this enclosure was the centre of the punga stem cleared of the soft fibre

found in the core.


The nest was made of short pieces of ti-tree bark which had been pulled

into shreds by myself. It is not unusual for the birds to bite this bark from

end to end to make it soft and before taking it up to the nest, to dip it into

the water vessel. They will use other things as well for nesting material,

stalks of grass, lengths of dock stem, pieces of old millet sprays and such

like. The majority of Lovebirds require moisture in the nest and the punga

stem was therefore hung from the roof of the aviary outside, exposed to the

weather. The ideal Lovebird nest is a decomposed damp bit of material

with at the top a thin layer of dry soft grass stems, etc. The grass stems are

not interwoven, similar to a Weaver’s nest or even as a Zebra Finch’s nest,

but are chewed up into short lengths and bedded down on to the coarser

material underneath by the weight of the bird’s body.


The usual number of eggs is four, they being clear white oval eggs, the

same type as usually laid by birds of the Parrakeet or Parrot species. It is not

possible to give the exact time of incubation but it is somewhere about

eighteen to twenty-one days. The young remained in the nest for about four

weeks, and when they finally emerged on 30th June, 1930, they were perfect

in feathering and about two-thirds the size of their parents, and although

the breast of the adult is pure yellow that of the young has a tinge of red in the

yellow which is not replaced when the birds moult. The beak is red in colour,

like that of the parent, although slightly fighter in shade, and has a dark

brown, almost black, tip. When the bird is two or three months old, this

black usually disappears.



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