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The Marquess of Tavistock -



destroyed, but the rest were very fine specimens. The cock of this

pair, though a ferocious fighter with other birds of his sex and

genus, is a singularly gentle and devoted husband and father.

He was at one time a liberty bird, but so great was his attachment

to his mate that he insisted on roosting on the roof of her aviary,

with the result that one night he was badly mauled by a rat. Since

then I have kept him shut up all the year round, an arrangement which

he evidently prefers.


The Yellow-rumps reared five fine young ones in their first brood

and four in their second. They are also a model couple, very gentle

and devoted to each other and extremely prolific. Although, through

no fault of their own, they have not reared all their offspring, they must,

since I first had them, have hatched nearly sixty eggs. Like many

good breeding pairs they were, for many years, abnormally wild and

nervous. It has also taken them nearly nine seasons to acquire a

taste for peanuts !


The Crimson-wings reared three good young ones, the fourth egg

of the hen’s first clutch being misshapen. For the first time in her

life she laid two more eggs after rearing her first brood, but she did

not sit.


The Australian Kings hatched two eggs of their first clutch and

reared a very fine true pair of young ones which promise to be better

birds than their parents. The hen laid again and has a second

brood a few weeks old. Strange to say, the cock seems more

fertile late in the summer when he has begun to moult than earlier

in the year. I find it is quite easy to sex Kings within a few weeks

of their leaving the nest. The hens have much darker beaks and the

red on the abdomen does not extend so high up. A young cock’s

beak becomes partly reddish at an early age.


Brown's Parrakeets reared four good young late in the summer after

a spring moult. Last year they lost their young in a similar type of

nest. The hen is aviary-bred but her husband is imported and has

a none too creditable “ past ” both in his native land and in England.

Though a model father, he possesses the unpleasant peculiarity of

desiring to murder his wife if for any reason he has been separated from

her even for the briefest period, while his appetite for warfare and



