II. Hampe—Another Attempt at Breeding Agapornis pullaria 59


female vanish into the hole. It was interesting to note that as her

desire to breed increased the female started persecuting the pair of

Plum-headed Parakeets inhabiting the same aviary. The Plum-heads

had just reared a brood, and while so doing had persecuted a pair of

Orange-cheeks, though out of the breeding season they got on quite

well, and paid each other little or no attention.


By June the female was often quite a long time in the hole, and

as in the previous year the male sat swaying near it, but only entered

occasionally and for a short time. The female did not do much to the

hole, generally she only smoothed the passage entrance. Like the

former female, she only carried in very small pieces of bitten willow

leaves in her feathers, the quantity which I found later in the hole

was very small indeed, even when she had begun to sit she often carried

in more leaves, but the male never did "this. I saw them pair for the

first time on the 6th July, afterwards repeated many times. As a rule

it lasted four to five minutes.


From the 29th July onwards the female slept in the hole, and on

the 1st August, or possibly late on the 31st July, she laid her first egg.

Four more were laid on the 2nd, 4th, 6th, and 8th respectively. They

measured 23*5 X 16‘5, 22’5 X 16, 20 X 16*5, and 19 X 17*5 mm.

The first egg was unnaturally pointed.


Incubation began with the first egg, but only the female sat. Her

mate fed her once daily in the hole, but always spent the night in

the shelter. When the female left the nest to relieve herself, he stood

by the hole enticing her back to it, and always accompanied her

when she flew back again.


Unfortunately the eggs did not hatch; some contained dead

chicks, and the rest were infertile, so I took them away on the 1st

September, and replaced the old male by a younger one, with whom

the female luckily soon became friendly, sitting side by side and billing

each other on the 9th September. After this the female occasionally

revisited the hole, but without result.


I intend to put them back in the old aviary after they have passed

the winter in an unheated bird room, and have obtained a second

pair which will be placed in another aviary and provided with a large

heap of chalk, and I hope that in 1938 I shall at last succeed in breeding

this species.



