The Marquess of Tavistock—Breeding Notes for 1933 381



My breeding pair of Barnards, the cock being B. crommelinae,

came to an untimely end last winter. One day I noticed both looking

ill with symptoms not easy to identify. The hen soon died and proved

to be suffering from tuberculosis. For a while the cock seemed likely

to recover but in the end he started to go very lame and I destroyed

him to save him from further suffering. This is the first case I have

had here of a deadly disease fortunately very rare in movable

aviaries and the origin of the isolated outbreak remains a mystery.


Towards the end of the winter my cock Rock Peplar, a trained

liberty bird, looked not quite right, having the appearance of having

banged himself or met with a similar injury. His eyes looked bright

and his appetite remained good, but he died rather suddenly and

proved to be a victim to aspergillosis, a disease which has occasionally

caused losses among non-psittacine birds. His widow was a most

erratic hen for whose mental attributes I entertained the lowest

opinion. Disregarding every shape and make of nest, she persisted,

year after year, in laying her eggs from the perch and then incubating

the perch from which she had projected them. I had practically made

up my mind to get rid of her, but, having foster parents available,

I decided to try and secure a fresh cock. The first, although of the

handsome yellow type so much to be preferred, proved an aviary-bred

degenerate of no use for stock purposes. The second was one of the

greenish West Australian birds, but I kept him as nothing better was

available. The hen was soon at her old tricks of inspecting nests

and refusing to listen to the threats of her partner and his entreaties

that she should set up house in one of them. When she was on the

point of laying I introduced a new wooden box with a coco-nut-husk

bottom which I should have considered most unsuitable for Rock

Peplars and one, moreover, which she had scorned the year before.

The contrary creature, however, took possession of it and after some

obvious hesitation as to whether it would not, after all, be better to

return to the perch, laid her eggs in it and started to sit and

at the time of writing has actually reared a fine son and two

daughters !


Barrabands did poorly. One pair that reared three young last

year had clear eggs and the pair that reared five have only two, though



