252 



nest down of the young is of a bright fawn colour, 

 giving place to a suit of rusty brown feathers, unre- 

 lieved by any shade save a darker tinge upon the 

 back"; Dr. Greene, "The young are dingy-looking 

 creatures"; and Seth-Smith, "The young are olive- 

 green with the cheeks and wing-coverts blue ; the red 

 generally appears first on the crown, throat and upper 

 tail-coverts, gradually extending over the whole body." 

 As will hereinafter appear, this last description is the 

 most accurate of those I have quoted, and applies to 

 some of the young, but not to all. 



I kept my purchases that winter in large box 

 cages in my heated bird-room, and turned them into 

 one of my outdoor aviaries (37 ft. by 7 ft. by 12ft. 

 high) in the middle of the following June. Here they 

 thrived exceedingly, and their plumage recovered from 

 the effects of close quarters. Also the two immature 

 birds donned full plumage and lost the greenish hue 

 of youth. They had as companions a pair of Rosellas 

 and a pair of Cockatiels, with whom they agreed per- 

 fectly until the spring of this year, when I noticed 

 that one of the supposed cocks — the largest and most 

 brilliant of them all — verified his sex by paying 

 marked attention to one of tlie supposed hens, viz. 

 one of the birds which had been in immature plumage 

 when I received it. At the same time he became very 

 impatient at the presence of the other Platycerci and 

 chased them all over the aviary. For the sake of 

 peace I disposed of the other two Pennants, and then 

 found that he concentrated his persecuting zeal on 

 the cock Rosella. 



One morning on going into the aviary I dis- 

 covered the seed trays bespattered with blood, and, on 

 looking round for the cause, saw the cock Rosella in 

 pitiable plight. The whole of his upper mandible 

 had been torn away. I caged him at once and did 

 what I could to prolong his life, feeding him by hand 



