30(S The Breeding of Barnard's Parralccets. 



afterwards a fine brood of five followed Iicr to the garden, 

 wliero she assisted in feeding tlieni with exemplary energy. 

 Both she and her mate wei'c now showing marked traces of the 

 heavy family labours they had had to perform, and their worn, 

 dull plumage contrasted strongly with the trim sl»'ekness oi 

 their young, who had not a single feather about them wliich 

 was rough or out oi place. When they could no loiigc)' in- 

 duce their long-suffering father to continue feeding them, the 

 young Barnard's began to display a disgraceful lack of filial 

 affection, driving him spitefully off the feeding tray whenever 

 he tried to join them, while they were enjoying a meal. This 

 treatment he submitted to with extraordinary meekness and 

 never attempted to retaliate; but the old hen, who was growing 

 thoroughly tired of her family and spent a good deal of time 

 alone, never allowed them to take any liberties with her and 

 quickly drove them off if they got in her way. One young 

 bird, however, appeared to be the favourite child of loth her 

 parents, for she was to be seen, with one or other, long after 

 her brothers and sisters had become quite independent. 



The breeding season closed with another disappoint- 

 ment. I had great hopes that the second hen would rear hci- 

 last brooc' successfully, but when she re -appeared, she was so 

 ill and weak that we had little trouble in catching her and 

 found her to be an absolute skeleton. No doubt her mate 

 had been unable to provide her with suff.cient food, and what 

 he had given her she had passed on to her young- henr-e her 

 emaciated condition. For some time she remained in a bad 

 way, and hardly ate anything, but by keeping lun- at a very 

 high temperature -80 to 90 degrees, I managed, in the end, to 

 pull her round, and she is now out again, apparently as well 

 as ever. Her second brood presumalily shared the fate of 

 the first. The moral is obvious: a doul)le establishment is 

 too much for a cock Parrakeet at liberty, whatever may 

 happer- in confinement, where food is close at hand. It is a 

 pity we could not have taken the young belonging to the 

 second hen and reared them ourselves, but this was impossible, 

 for the first nest was practically inaccessible, and the second 

 was never found. 



Still, on the whole, I have not done badly. One ol the 

 young Barnard's of the first brood died very suddenly from 



