The Bearing of White-bred Boseate Cockatoos 241


was worse, since enough peat moss had not been used, it was a broken

egg. You Budgerigar and Finch breeders with birds willing to

lay half a dozen eggs three times a year, you may thank your stars

that the fate of a season does not depend on a single egg or, at

most, two !


After this debacle the Roseates took no more interest in their nest

and a sinister dropped flight feather or two proclaimed, “ No more

hope till 1933.” I was disgusted with the hen. Year after year I

had kept her on because of her pale colour and early performances,

but now she had failed me five seasons in succession. She should go

and her place be taken by an ordinary lady of darker hue who had a

proper appreciation of the comforts of a good home. The ordinary

lady duly arrived and as it was too late to hope for anything this year

was temporarily installed two aviaries away. That did the trick. Just

as the best method of inducing an unprolific pen of fowls to commence

business in the egg line is to start to eat them, so the best way to make

a disappointing matron of the Parrot family do her duty is to prepare

to get rid of her. The hen Roseate discerned what the coming of

that other lady portended. She stopped moulting, once more took a

lively interest in her nest, and her complexion deepened hopefully.


“ In the spring a fuller crimson comes upon the Cockatoo.


(This is not the poet’s fancy but is absolutely true.”)


While the breast of the Robin and the neck of the Dove remain

wholly unchanged since the moult of the previous autumn, the breast

of a Roseate coming into breeding condition deepens by quite two shades

without any moult at all.


In due course two eggs arrived, not on the floor of the shelter but

in the proper place. The white cock proved a faithful and devoted

father, spending more time in brooding than is usual with his species.

The only thing that seriously upset him was the appearance of my

daughter’s new dachshund who was immediately identified with Yellow

Dog Dingo and treated to an ear-splitting demonstration by the out¬

raged parents, until hastily removed.


In due course the babies hatched and have now made their exit into

the world—a nice couple, but normal in colour and darker than either

parent, as is usual in the first generation. If they are ever to produce



