Further Breeding Notes for 1932



315



bloodshed is something incredible S In Australia he murdered the

greater part of an aviary of birds, while he and his principal rivals

bear to this day the scars of the three days’ battle which raged almost

unceasingly when some years ago I was imprudent enough to try him

at liberty ! I should perhaps add that these shortcomings are peculiar

to himself. The average cock Brown’s is no more and no less pugnacious

than any other broadtail.


A pair of lutinistic Plumheads were given a hollow apple-tree for

a nest. Last year, in a grandfather-clock box, three out of their four

young were badly rickety. The hen bit a hole in the top of the tree-

trunk in addition to the entrance-hole at the side, but as I thought

she might consider the extra light and air preventative of rickets I did

not interfere with her arrangements. Apparently she was right, as

the four green young proved nice strong birds. They were reared

largely on spray millet of which the parents are exceedingly fond,

in addition, of course, to fruit and other seeds. Young Plumheads

are decidedly sensitive to cold and must be wintered indoors their first

season. They undergo a fairly thorough body moult their first autumn,

when their heads become grey, being green tinged with dull salmon

pink when they are in first plumage. I am still uncertain as to whether

the males assume their plum-coloured heads in the second or third

autumn.


My Barnardius crommelince which, for a long time, I believed to be

a hen, has ultimately turned out a male. His mate, an ordinary

Barnard, did not nest last year, but this season they reared four young,

one being weakly and dying after being caught up. The cocks have

well-developed yellow bars on the breast but the hens had the uniform

blue-green of the male parent.


Pennants hatched two of their seven eggs and reared two nice

young, one being mainly red in first plumage and the other mainly

green. The cock is a bit eccentric as a result of many years close

confinement in a cage in a grimy industrial town. He is now, in his

old age, a thoroughly lazy rascal, leaving the whole care of his family to

his wife whom he does not bother to feed even when she is sitting. If

he sees her busy about the home he whistles pompously by way of

encouragement but does nothing else. I do not think she has any



