Correspondence.



179



morning, it takes less than half the time it otherwise would if allowed

to go a week and the birds are infinitely better for it, of this I am

sure. Clean water for drinking should be given every day in winter,

and always twice, morning and evening, in summer time. I prefer

rain water.


CORRESPONDENCE, NOTES, ETC


INTELLIGENCE OF A STANLEY PARRAKEET.


The other day I had an amusing instance of intelligent observation in

a cock Stanley parrakeet, an old show bird recently imported from Australia,

hut wild-bred. Since his arrival, he and his mate have lived in two of the

rectangular cages I use for Platycerci and are now thinking of nesting. When

the snow came I had to take in a rosella from an outdoor aviary and she was

put in the same room as the Stanleys in such a position that they could hear

but not see her. The following day I decided to shift the rosella from the

rectangular cage she was occupying into an ordinary parrot cage and a servant

brought it in and set it down on the floor (empty) so that the top was visible to

the Stanleys. In a moment the cock was on the floor of his own cage in a

corner nearest the parrot cage, indulging in violent abuse and tail-waggling,

under the impression that the cage contained the rosella. although he had never

seen her in it, or any other bird for that matter. The interesting thing is that

after a considerable interval he recognised a parrot cage at sight, not as a feed¬

ing-place, a home, or a prison, but as a receptacle for parrots, and he knew that

if you hear a parrot in a room and see part of a parrot cage the parrot is sure

to be inside the parrot cage and nowhere else. So certain was he of this, that

the fact that he could not see the rosella and had heard her calling from a

different direction, did not alter his opinion of her obvious whereabouts in the

least. I may add that when he was shown a cage some weeks ago he took no

particular interest in it, as he had at that time no reason to believe there was

anything in it. - TAVISTOCK.


AN EARLY BLACKCAP WARBLER AT THE FRONT— B.E.F.


Captain PHILIP GOSSE writes to say that he,saw a blackcap on the 17th

March, the first migrant he had noticed up to that date.


NOTES FROM SALONIKA.


Mr. HUGH WORMALD sends these interesting notes, written bv his

brother from Salonika :—


Nov. 19th, 1915. There area few hares about, partridges, snipe and duck,

lots of hawks, buzzards, magpies, tortoises by the dozen, lizards, and a few

serpents. There is a very pretty grey hawk, very like a sea gull in markings,

which we cannot place, a fair-sized bird. (Surely a harrier. H.W.) The sheep



