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Lord Tavistock—Breeding Results for 1937



fed the young continuously. Sibias, however, are inclined to fight

amongst themselves and the hen Grey would probably have been

killed had the Black-headed not been shut out of the aviary.


I feel convinced that had the hen Grey been caught up the young

would have been reared quite satisfactorily by the Black-headed, but

the Grey alone failed to bring the young off the nest.


These birds are very fond of fruit, particularly apples, and appear

to be equally hardy as their Black-headed cousins. Like these, they

are very quick in their movements and make excellent and attractive

aviary birds.



BREEDING RESULTS FOR 1937


By Lord Tavistock


The breeding season just ended has been a rather moderate one,

some quite nice birds being reared but nothing very new or striking.

X , the evil spirit who specializes in blasting the fondest hopes of avicul-

turalists, was, as usual, well to the fore and on every occasion which

afforded real scope to his inventive genius for destruction or misplaced

humour, he did not fail to rise to the opportunity !


As the aviaries were being moved and re-erected all through the

late winter, spring, and early summer, the birds were subjected to a

good deal of disturbance and it was really wonderful how few were

put off nesting altogether. In the few cases where former breeding

pairs did not lay it was usually when they had had to be moved

to a fresh aviary after their arrival at Haywards Heath, the second

short move proving, apparently, far more disturbing than the first

complete change of district.


The weather on the whole was fairly good. Some very cold north¬

west winds produced a fair number of cases of egg-binding, but there

was a commendable absence of the usual hard frost and snow in April and

of the spell of arctic weather characteristic of the second week in May.


The stock of Indian Ringnecks consisted of two lutino hens (sisters)

bred by myself about four years ago and mated to a lutino-bred cock



