J. Delacour—■ American Aviculture



135



wonderful male Anna Humming-bird, which lives in a large sheltered

aviary, built along the wall of the house, full of creepers and bushes.

Mr. S. Stevens, near Riverside, has a large and pretty aviary of two

compartments, where he keeps a fine mixed collection of seed- and

soft food-eating birds. I noticed there the finest Holden Oriole (the

Philippine race) that I ever saw, a delightfully tame Plumed Ground

Dove, and a lovely Tabuan Parrakeet.


Mr. and Mrs. R. Black have very large, wild aviaries, with many

Pheasants, Pigeons, Parrakeets, etc. For over ten years they have

bred the fine Otidiphaps nobilis , and they still have eight of them.

I noticed a gorgeous hybrid Borneo Fireback X Swinhoe Pheasant.

Mr. Black claims that they reared a hybrid between the Nicobar Pigeon

and the Otidiphaps, which, unfortunately, I could not see.


Mr. Howland, at the foot of his oil-wells, has a fine pheasantry,

with many rare species. Mr. J. R. Gorton, the president of the Game

Breeders 5 Association, has a good mixed collection. Mr. W. J. Parsonson,

a keen beginner, breeds Pheasants and the smaller Waterfowl.


Mr. Gilbert Lee has been successful in breeding Grey Parrots and

Eclectus for several years, and he has quite a breeding stock of them,

as well as of some other species of Parrots and Parrakeets. The gems

of his collection are a newly arrived and exquisite pair of Marquesan

Blue Lories ( Coriphilus smaragdinus), and a pair of Kuhl’s Ruby

Lories. These have been nesting repeatedly for several years, but only

one young one was so far reared, all the others dying after a couple

of days. Mr. Lee is now trying a new and more insectile diet, which

they probably require.


Dr. Leon Patrick, at Orange, is one of the first and most successful

Parrot breeders in California, and many of Lord Tavistock’s birds

have been entrusted to him. He has a choice collection, including

several pairs of Norfolk Island, Pileated, and Derbyan Parrakeets.

He has just bred a hybrid Panama X Levaillant’s Amazon.


In the vicinity of San Diego, a very warm district, we visited what

is perhaps the largest private collection of Parrots in America, that of

Mr. I. D. Putnam. He has some 150 large outdoor compartments,

built along walls in two rows facing one another, with a large space

between them. Mr. Putnam owns many pairs of different species of



