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Edward J. Boosey—The Masked Grassfinch



a particular bird (and even one that is notoriously “ difficult ”) is

a rather shy breeder, for someone to rush forward with the startling

news that, on the contrary, their pair behave, and always have behaved,

quite like guinea pigs, producing so many young ones that their harassed

owner simply doesn’t know what to do with them ! And they are

probably right ; but only about the particular pair of that species

they happen to be fortunate enough to own.


As a boy I possessed a pair of Zebra Finches whose irritating

behaviour was such as to justify me in supposing that of all the difficult

triumphs of aviculture, none was more unattainable than the successful

rearing of a brood of Zebra Finches !


The reason for this diversity of experience is, of course, the

infinite variety of behaviour, temperament, size, and colouring to be

met with among individual birds of the same species ; and if this

applies to Finches it is doubly true of the more sensitive Parrots and

Parrakeets. It is, therefore, obviously unsafe to generalize, for whereas

one pair of birds in a particular aviary will rear large families, to their

owner’s delight, another pair of the same species will often fail to rear

anything at all, though housed in precisely the same type of aviary

and even under the same management.


I am now going to be rash enough to assert that here at the Keston

Foreign Bird Farm we have found that, though young Masked are

reared every year, they cannot be considered quite such easy or prolific

breeders as their cousins, the Long-tail. They are by nature much

shyer birds, and therefore take considerably longer to settle down in

a new environment ; in fact, if you want to breed them you would

be well advised to put them in your most secluded aviary, otherwise,

if they have anything to disturb or distract them, your chances of

success will be small.


One point of great importance to remember when dealing with

Masked is their rooted dislike, when breeding, to fussy interference

on the part of their owners. Some particularly docile pairs there may

be who will tolerate a certain amount of nest-inspection, but they

are few indeed compared with those that will desert on the slightest

provocation.


The more experience I have of bird-breeding, the more certain



