A Visit to an Indian Jheel. 209 



Hearin.i^, some time ago, of a person who had kept a 

 male cockateel and his family at liberty for a considerable time, 

 cnly losing- them when he unwisely released the old hen also, 

 ' thouglit I would make one more experiment to see if, after 

 nil, the cockateel does not belong to that class of swift-flying 

 parrakeets, the males of which will stay so long as their mates 

 are in confinement. 



Accordingly I placed a pair in a suitable aviary with 

 plenty of tall trees at the back of it, and after a week or two 

 released the cock, having taken the precaution to keep him 

 without food since the early morning. His behaviour at first 

 was not promising. He was soon on the wing at a great 

 height looking at any moment as if he might dash away and 

 travel for miles, but the hen did her duty as a call bird, and 

 tl'ough he flew as swift and wild as any bird I have released, 

 he kept circling back over the garden and never really went 

 t.T away. Most of the afternoon and evening he drifted about 

 the sky, often hanging in the wind like a gull, a method of 

 ^iir^ht uncommon in the parrakeet family, and as far as I know 

 confined to this species. Next day he was still about, and in 

 di f course came and fed on the top of the aviary. He now 

 seems to have quite settled down and treats me :o frequent 

 exhibitions of his beautiful flight, which is only surpassed in 

 speed and grace by the Polytelis family. As it is, he rises 

 higher, and keeps longer on the wing than they do. When in 

 the air he is usually pursued by a crowd of indignant swallows, 

 who seem to mistake him for some kind of hawk, a not 

 unnatural mistake, for he is decidedly hawk-like in the shape 

 of his wings. When settling down in a tree he always 



selects a dead branch, never one which has thick foliage. 



If he continues to prosper I shall get a second pair and 

 have another cock at liberty, cockateels being amiable birds and 

 not inclined to annov their neiehbours. 



A Visit to an Indian Jheel. 



By Hugh Whistler, F.Z.S. (Indian Police). 



In the Gurdaspur district of the Punjab there is a famous 

 duckjheel known as the Keishopura jheel, which, during the cold 



