Marquess of Tavistock—Parrots as Foster-parents 211


ourselves, in pink birthday suits ; while others have a considerable

covering of white or yellow fluff. This latter phenomenon appears

to produce a very disturbing effect on the minds of foster-parents used

to naked infants, and they generally refuse to feed ; although the

reverse does not seem to hold good, as I have had naked chicks well

reared by a foster-mother whose own children would have been fluffy.

Some years ago a hen Crimson-wing reared two very good Ringnecks,

but the reverse experiment—Crimson-wing eggs given to a Ringneck

foster has just failed in one of my aviaries, where a Ringneck chick

is still alive, but its Crimson-wing foster-brother, clothed in white,

has died, apparently unfed. It may be for this same reason that

ninety-nine Budgerigars out of a hundred are useless as foster-parents

for the fluffy chicks of Grass Parrakeets, letting them die at once.


Nyassa Lovebirds will sometimes rear Grass Parrakeets, but the

other species usually kill them when they begin to detect the fraud.


Bourke’s will occasionally rear the young of green species of Grass

Parrakeets, but more commonly desert them when the green feathers

begin to appear.


A grey Parrot in my collection killed the fluffy young she hatched

from two Yellow-rumped Parrakeet eggs, but this may be because

she was unmated, spinster foster-mothers being often erratic, and

apparently fearful of scandal should eggs hatch that ought to be

infertile !


I have had young Barrabands well reared by a Sula Island King

in the same nest as her own hybrid Crimson-wing offspring ; while

at Poxwarren Park young Princess of Wales’s were well reared by

Crimson-wings in the same nest as their own offspring.


In my own collection a Layard’s Parrakeet did so far overcome

the objection to white fluff as to rear a Crimson-wing after a fashion,

but it was rickety and died soon after leaving the nest. Crimson-wings

seem, however, to be a difficult proposition for any fosters of other

species, a hen King of my own—a particularly good and devoted

mother—failing to make an entire success of two she raised in a good

nest, one of them being slightly rickety.



