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Marquess of Tavistock—Further Notes for 1931



useless, so I was obliged to give the bird away as a pet. It is,

I suppose, the first Lutino fully reared in confinement, so it is all the

more sad it should be a cripple. It is a lovely colour, with red eyes.


The second pair of Lutino-breds had only one egg, which was

infertile. The difficulty of breeding Lutinos is augmented by the fact

that my stock of Lutino-bred Greens seem all to be firm believers in

birth-control, never laying more than two eggs and never having

more than one nest in a season. The third pair, which have already

produced two Lutinos which died after leaving the nest, had two Green

young ; one died when half grown. The other was reared, but is not

a perfect flyer.


A lutinistic cock Plumhead (a pure Lutino for a time at an earlier

period in his career, but pied in early youth and at the present time)

mated to a yellowish-green hen had four normally coloured young.

In spite of the fact that the old birds ate enormous quantities of

sprouting seed and seed dripping in cod liver oil, three of the young

birds were very rickety. One died soon after leaving the nest. Two

improved greatly and were able to fly for some weeks, but the advent

of cold weather in November killed them as they were stupid about

using their heated shelter. The survivor is a fair specimen. I find

that young Plumheads have a fairly heavy body moult their first

autumn in the course of which they acquire quite grey heads.


A Lutino Alexandrine Parrakeet sat in her nest but did not lay.

She is unfortunately a cripple, with frost-bitten toes and a damaged

wing.


The Princess of Wales Parrakeets had infertile eggs. The rather

old imported cock I first tried with the hen would not pair, though

very attentive in every other way. The second cock, bred by

Mr. Astley, paired but would never feed her. A rather curious

incident took place when the hen was about to lay, illustrating

the strong desire that cock Polyteline Parrakeets display to

oblige their wives to attend properly to home duties, a

desire which has nothing whatever to do with sexual instinct.

The hen Princess of Wales, though obviously on the point of laying,

was not over taken with her nest and would come off at any and every

excuse. I had noticed for some days that her reluctance to settle down,



