37<3 Practical Bird-Keeping .— VIII. Parrots.


biscuit sop already mentioned, as well as soft fruits—the smaller

Parrots and Parrakeets, as I was about to say, will do well on

Canary and millet and other seeds, with some hemp seed added

in the winter, and even a very sparse addition of linseed, but they

also like fruit, especially apple in winter time, and strawberries

in summer, and what is almost most important, especially for the

Australian Parrakeets, an abundance of salad in the shape of

groundsel, chickweed, etc., etc., as well as flowering grasses, as

soon as there is no frost on the ground. I generally leave off

green food of this description by perhaps the middle of October

(although it depends upon the weather) and recommence it with

care in the middle of February. But it must then be of a fresh

growth, and not be sodden with rain, or frost-bitten. Chicory

leaves are beneficial in winter-time, if grown in a frame, but great

care must be taken at that season of the year.


From March to October, my Parrakeets usually have an

abundance of green food put fresh every day into the aviaries,

and a nice bunch into each cage. Where there are Budgerigars

and such like, a large bouquet of grasses, etc. can be wired

round a stout stick, which can be fixed in a flower pot. If the

bunches are wired round the stems, it enables the birds to pull

at what they want, as if it was actually growing, and at the same

time prevents the stuff from being scattered untidily about the

aviary. I believe my young Bourke’s Parrakeets, etc. are fed

almost entirely upon half digested green food and grass seeds,

and they usually leave the nest in the pink of condition. After

all, it is their natural food, and consequently most necessary.


And Parrots need water to drink, care being taken that the

water vessels are well scrubbed out, and even scalded ; for one

sometimes sees them with a nasty slime at the bottom, which

must assist in generating microbes of some kind or another.


Parrots, like all birds, need wing exercise to keep them

healthy and robust, although one sees individuals living in cages

year in and year out, who are never able to stietch and flap their

wings : and Parrots are as swift and agile on the wing as any other

birds. I have an especially tame Queen Alexandra Parrakeet

(Spalhoplenis alexandrce , as it is dubbed !) which is kept in a cage,

but is let out at least twice a week for a fly in a large room. To



