Practical Bird-Keeping. — IV. Parrakeets. 247


require only canary seed, and no artificial warmth is necessary in

the winter. It is desirable to separate the sexes from October to

the beginning of April, as otherwise they will breed practically

the whole year round, and the hens will be liable to die of egg¬

binding during the cold weather. Moreover, the nests get damp

in the winter and the young suffer.


It is advisable to supply two nest-boxes for each pair of

birds so that there may be a choice of sites and quarrelling

will be avoided.


The Budgerigar is almost too well known to need any

description. It is mostly bright green with black wavy cross¬

bars over the back. A yellow face and blue tail. The cock has

a bright blue cere over the beak ; in the hen this is brown, while

in the immature bird it is dull bluish in both sexes.


There is a common variety of the Budgerigar, which has

been produced by selection, which is almost entirely yellow, the

dark pigment having disappeared from the plumage. Yellow

Budgerigars are now so common that the price is little higher

than that asked for the normal bird.


An extremely rare and beautiful variety is the Blue

Budgerigar. It was known some twenty-five or thirty years

ago, but completely disappeared until Mons. Pauwels, a well-

known Belgian aviculturist, exhibited a pair in Tondon in 1910.

In this variety the yellow pigment is absent, the bird being of a

most beautiful blue, with a pure white face and black bars over

the back.


The Cockatiee or Cockatoo Parrakeet (Calopsittacus

novce-hollanditz), of Australia, is another popular favourite, almost

as well-known as the Budgerigar, and equally hardy. It is about

the size of a Thrush but with a longer tail. The male is dark-

grey with a yellow face and crest, a white patch on the wing-

coverts and a brick-red patch on the cheeks. The hen is quite

different in colour, being brownish, with the underside of the

tail barred with yellow.


One pair of Cockatiels can be kept in the same compart¬

ment as Budgerigars, with which they will agree, although they

would disagree with others of their own species or parrakeets of

about the same size. They are very free breeders, laying from



