142 M. Amsler—Recently Imported Bluebirds


Mountain Bluebird : western North America. In Canada from the

west coast east to Manitoba, north to the Yukon and Mackenzie

Valley.


It is unlikely that any more of these birds will be imported in our

lifetime and it behoves those who possess any one of the species to

make a great effort to perpetuate it. This can be done with tolerable

certainty in the case of newly imported birds ; but as I have elsewhere

pointed out Bluebirds are less ready fully to rear their young in sub¬

sequent years, when the aid of our native Robin can be called in, or

the brave owner can give his Bluebirds semi-liberty when they have

hatched their young. One of my friends has a pair of Eastern Blue

Robins which rears its young quite happily in an old tin hung up in a

cage some 4 feet long.


They are at the moment due to hatch (20th March). It is possible

that her success is due to the fact that the birds have no distractions

and no other possible “ eligible sites ” to make them think about

further families.


My own attempts at cage-breeding in the past, it must be admitted,

have always been doomed to failure. The clutches were small, either

two or three, the eggs usually clear, and on one occasion they were

white instead of the beautiful hedge-sparrow blue.


All adults should be ringed with distinctive colour or number

and the young ringed to correspond to the above. It is only by this

method that we shall in the future avoid extensive inbreeding. I had

until recently, a pair which were the offspring several times inbred

from my original Bluebirds which came to me over ten years ago :

by the acquisition of a new pair I have been able to “ swap ” the birds :

and thus I am certain of two unrelated pairs. There is also a pair of

the newly imported Western species, the hen of which has caused me j

much anxiety by sneezing and rapid breathing. Although they had

been outside until their arrival here I have brought them into a warm

room and pray for the best.


How much wiser it would be to collect stamps or china rather than

birds ! The value of the former increases as time goes on ; they are

everlasting and neither can ever cause one depression or lack of sleep

by sickness or death.



