Marquess of Tavistock—Swift Parrakeets



265



alone incubates and both she and her mate are devoted and long-

suffering parents. The youngsters are lazy, selfish, and rather ungrateful

little beggars, expecting their tired and moulting parents to feed them

long after they are well able to look after themselves if they tried. Later,

when they do start to feed themselves, they drive their elders away

in the most irritable fashion should they desire some delicacy for their

own consumption. Baby Swifts, like young Bourkes and Budgerigars,

are beautiful little creatures when newly fledged, their immaculate

plumage being a soft replica of their parents’ and their dark eyes being

prettier than the orange-brown of the adults. They are rarely stupidly

nervous and the young cock already referred to would feed from my

hand a few days after leaving the nest. My birds are kept in 24 ft. X

8 ft. X 8 ft. movable aviaries and fed on Dr. Allinson’s food prepared

as for infants and sweetened, sweetened white bread and milk, apple,

green food, and mixed seed. At first I used to give only millet and canary

but this year I found that they readily ate hemp and sunflower as well

and appeared to benefit thereby.


Swifts stand by themselves in the Parrot family with some distant

affinity, I am sure, to the Polytetive Parrakeets and none whatever

to the Lorikeets. Gentle, interesting, beautiful, inoffensive in voice,

and easily tamed, they have but two drawbacks : like most nectar-

feeders they are very messy and their shelter requires constant cleansing.

They are also, I think, not completely hardy and some artificial heat

in winter is probably indispensable.


Although not exactly easy to sex, the hen Swift is sufficiently

duller than her mate to be fairly easily distinguished. Young birds

undergo a partial moult into brighter plumage when a few months old,

full adult dress being assumed the following autumn.



