My Layard's Parrakcct. 109 



separates the la^•endel■ of the head from the lavender of the 

 mantle, rump and upper wing coverts. The lower wing' coverts 

 are pale olive green with markings like shot silk, and the flights 

 dull green with greyish inner webbing. The tail is of the usual 

 Palaeornis type, but not very long and the two central feathers 

 are deep violet tipped with pale green, giving a very pretty finish 

 to the delicate shading of the rest of the plumage. The feet 

 are of the greyish colour usual in parrakeets, and the beak is 

 red in the male, blackish in the female, just as in the case of 

 the Moustache and the Malabar. The inner part of the iris 's 

 dark greyish brown, but there is a narrow band of pale straw 

 colour on the outside. 



My bird was extremely tame when he arrived, and at the 

 approach either of friends or strangers he begins to utter a shrill 

 monotonous " Crray ! Crray ! " and flies up to the wire to 

 converse with them. He has three calls; the one just mentioned, 

 which, it must be admitted, would be rather maddening in the 

 house, and two others, far less disagreeable. One is a low, soft 

 " Crou-crou, crou-crou ! " which he intersperses with his 

 " Crrays ! " when conversing with visitors, and uses almost 

 entirely if the person who comes to see him is a well-known 

 friend. His third call resembles the query " Eh?" 



He is a good-tempered bird with human beings and I 

 have never known him show a violent dislike to anyone. He has 

 his preferences, however; he is occasionally snappy with the 

 gardener wlio feeds him, but I have never known him otherwise 

 than civil with me and my wife, and, a little affectionate talk and 

 admiration from either of us will often start him bringing up 

 food from his crop. If one goes into the aviary he alights 

 on the ground close to one's feet and keeps making little, short 

 runs in different directions, pausing for a moment at the end 

 of each run, stretching out his neck and slightly raising his head 

 and all the time keeping up his " Crou-crou, crou-crou ! " 



He has had various bird companions. First a hen 

 Elossom-head, whom he ignored but did not appear to quarrel 

 with. Then he lived for a time with some Budgerigars. These 

 he would run at with open beak if they approached him closely, 

 and, one was eventually found dead with its head badly bitten. 

 The Layard may have been the murderer, but other birds had 



