1932 ; the Things that didn't come off and the New Arrivals 253


the Crimson-wing to try again. She did and we gave her a Rock Peplar

egg but the embryo died at an early stage. The undefeated hybrid

actually induced his young wife to lay a third time but she then felt

that she had done enough and on this occasion flatly refused to sit !


The old Sula Island King, mother of the hybrid previously referred

to, I mated with a Princess of Wales Parrakeet. Although she found

his courtship antics of leaping wildly to and fro over her head rather

disconcerting, she accepted him as a husband but the eggs were infertile.

He was bred in a fixed aviary by Mr. Astley and is, I fear, definitely

sterile as he has been a failure for many successive seasons with a

hen of his own species.


Great hopes were raised when the Queen of Bavaria Conures, some¬

what unexpectedly, went to nest in June. Three eggs were laid and

although one was slightly damaged, the hen incubated the others

very faithfully for quite a month. Unhappily there has been no result.

My aviary attendant tells me that they carried a little grass into the

nest.


The Fairy Bluebirds again misbehaved. Two eggs were laid, one

of which was eaten after two days and the other deserted. It was

put into a Flycatcher’s nest but a stoat made a clean sweep of the lot.

Very soon afterwards the hen went to nest again but became egg-bound,

an ailment to which the species seems somewhat liable. We saved

her but she would not sit. Malabar Parrakeets also had infertile

eggs, the cock possessing a maddening habit of biting off all his flight

and tail feathers just before the breeding season. I had the rather

tantalizing experience this year of having no less than six valuable

breeding hens, all anxious to nest and all without effective partners

or partners of any kind. They were two Malabars, a Layard, a Salvadori,

a Halmahera Hanging Parrot, and a Princess of Wales Parrakeet.


My big hen Banksian laid an egg and sat her full time without

result; she has now started again with a second egg. I fear her mate,

a Western Black Cockatoo, is also definitely sterile although, unlike

most tame birds of his species, he is a very attentive husband.


The Worcester’s Hanging Parrot, paired to a fine cock Golden-

back, had two clutches of infertile eggs, the same as last year. In the

autumn of 1931 I thought her breeding days were over as she suddenly



