Lord Tavistock—Breeding Results for 1937



337



were found in the nest with the skeletons of the dead chicks. Though

not, I suppose, to be compared with its tropical relatives for destruc¬

tiveness, the common small black ant is, as I know from previous

experience, well able to kill nestling birds as well as young tree-frogs.

It is the same ill-conditioned little brute which, with misplaced agricul¬

tural zeal, farms green-fly on one’s best rose trees !


The remaining two pairs of Plumheads are lutinistic. One pair had

clear eggs, the same as last year. The other pair produced four rickety

young ones, one of which injured its head soon after leaving the nest,

while the other three were killed later by a stoat which found a hole

in the wire netting of the floor. The giving of Virol-soaked spray millet

proved a failure as far as the stamina of the young was concerned,

although the parents ate it quite freely. One rather interesting feature

of lutinistic Plumheads is that the plumage is not always constant from

moult to moult. One pied cock is much yellower this autumn than he

was before, while a yellowish hen is, on the contrary, much greener.


A hen Plumhead paired to a cock Slaty-head reared three good

young. Their young one of last year wintered successfully in an out¬

door aviary. As often happens, the hybrids appear more robust than

the pure species.


One pair of Malabars w r ere upset by a double move and did not settle

down to nesting. The cock also has a habit of going out of breeding con¬

dition just as the weather is getting warm enough for the hen to have some

chance of laying safely. The species is exceedingly liable to egg-binding.


The second pair reared two good young, their third fertile egg

being damaged.


My old breeding pair of Layards were also upset by a double move

and did not nest, though they got as far as pairing.


The other couple, consisting of an imported cock and a two-year-old

hen bred by myself, reared two very fine young ones in a grandfather-

clock nest. The cock ate a lot of bread and milk and spray millet. One

good point about Layards is that, although liable to egg-binding,

you can keep them back from breeding until the warm nights have

arrived in June without fear of their going early into moult.


Derbyan Parrakeets reared three fine youngsters in a natural tree-

trunk. The hen has a curious habit, immediately after pairing wdth the



