Tameness of captured wild birds.



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three birds were caught on a sugar plantation and brought to

Australia. The Tabuan is an adult bird and very lively, dancing

about the cage; this is contrary to the behaviour of most Tabuans,

who as a rule sit very still and quiet.


The two Red-shining Parrakeets are an old and a very young

bird. The latter (at the time of writing, November 23rd) was only

about eight weeks old, and was still on soft feed, soaked biscuit,

boiled rice, and beginning to crack canary-seed for itself. A letter,

dated a week later, says the bird is fully on seed ; its diet being

canary, hemp, sunflower, cracked maize, and dry biscuit. Though

so young, this Red-shining Parrakeet was as large and brightly-

coloured as the adult bird, but in the latter the beak and claws are

black and there is a bright orange ring round the eyes as in the King

Parrakeet. In the young bird the beak and claws are yellow and the

eyes a dull black.


A little boy of four, the son of Mr. Colton’s friend, made a

great pet of the young bird, whom he called “ Shine,” and within a

few days of his arrival the Parrakeet would follow the child about

the yard for soaked bread, waddling in the quaint way these Parra¬

keets do.


The Red-shining is a very large and handsome Parrakeet, with

a long broad tail. It differs from the Tabuan in being red (on the

head, neck, and underneath) where the Tabuan is maroon, and has a

bright blue band round the back of the neck that the Tabuan lacks.

I have not kept either of these birds, but I have kept the Masked

Parrakeet that is nearly allied, and a more beautiful or delightful pet

than “ Dick ” would have been hard to find, and he was also singu¬

larly intelligent.


Faithfully yours,


Rosie Alderson.



TAMENESS OF CAPTURED WILD BIRDS.


The Duchess of Bedford writes : “ A few years ago, in very

hard frost, a Grey Wagtail persistently came and pecked at the

windows and was always flying in somewhere. I caught him

and put him in an 18 x 12 inch cage. He took mealworms



