Lady Poltimore—Breeding Black-headed and White-breasted Caiques 295


the nest, expecting as usual to have to remove the eggs, but to his

surprise he found two young birds about two days old, and two eggs

in the box. Two days later he made another examination, and found

four young birds. After an interval of a few more days he again

examined the nest, and found that the two birds last hatched were

dead, and had apparently not been fed : the first two appeared to be

doing well and growing. I was away from home when the Caiques

were hatched, and on my return I told my gardener to interfere with

the birds as little as possible, as the cock became so frantic if anyone

approached his nest that I was afraid he might do the young birds

harm in his agitation.


When we again examined the nest two or three weeks later, we

found that one bird was twice the size of the other, and I feared then

that they would not be successful in rearing the smaller one, as the

larger bird seemed to be getting most of the attention and food. The

cock seemed to be doing most of the feeding, and was untiring in

his efforts. The smaller bird lived for about six or seven weeks, but

it did not thrive or grow, and it died. It was fully feathered, resembled

the hen (a White-breasted Caique) in plumage, but was very small.

The surviving bird remained in the nest for about 2J months, and when

it eventually left it for the first time, it was as large as its parents

and quite strong on the wing. We watched it for a long time peeping

through the entrance hole at the world outside, before it decided

eventually to come out. It still spends a good deal of its time in the

nest-box, coming out to feed and fly about with its parents, but if

anything alarms it, it quickly scuttles back into the nest-box again.

The three always sleep in the nest-box together.


The young bird now feeds itself, but it will not yet touch any hard

food, and lives on soaked biscuits, soaked sunflower seed, and fruit.

I saw it to-day for the first time, attempting to eat a small piece of

a walnut. While they were rearing their young, I provided the old

birds with soaked biscuit, soaked sunflower seed, and white oats,

besides their usual dry seed mixture, and they ate largely of the two

former foods. I also tried them with Trower’s Cecto, damped, and

mealworms. The Cecto they did not touch, but they ate greedily as

many mealworms as they could get. I also provided them with unlimited



