192 Alec Brooksbank—Breeding the Varied Lorikeet in Captivity


BREEDING THE VARIED LORIKEET

(.PSITTEUTELES VERSICOLOR) FOR THE

FIRST TIME IN CAPTIVITY IN EUROPE.


By Alec Brooksbank


The first Varied Lorikeets we ever possessed here at the Keston

Foreign Bird Farm arrived in February, 1930, and were brought over

to us by an Australian trapper.


There were, as far as I can remember, four in a collection of mis¬

cellaneous birds, and as it is a little known species and rarely imported,

into this country at any rate, the amount of reliable information to

be gained from books was nil.


The four birds appeared to be identically alike, but as the sexes

of most Lorikeets are the same this was not to be wondered at. Hope¬

fully I paired them off as I thought, but none of them ever looked

inside a box and eventually as their aviaries were badly wanted for

other birds they were all sold.


The next lot that arrived here came unexpectedly during the early

part of 1935. The consignment consisted of more than four birds and

now my previous mistake of sexing was all too obvious—I had been

trying to breed with four hens ! The cocks, I saw, have a great deal

of mauvy red on their throats and upper breast, whilst the hens, although

possessing a certain amount of this colour on their throats, the area

of it was, I realized at once, not nearly so extensive, and the colour

not nearly so intense.


Although I did not cherish much hope of breeding, I put several

pairs into separate small aviaries, supplying some of the pairs with

log nests and some with deep boxes with wire ladders inside. All

were promptly used as bedrooms and the birds remained housed in

this way throughout last summer and winter.


About December I thought I heard feeding noises coming from one

of the nests, but as the box was almost impossible to look into without

seriously disturbing the birds, I left things quite alone. After a time

the noises ceased, so presumably the young (if any) had died.



