76



Correspondence.



I shall feel much obliged if you will inform ms whether these birds

might remain in the outdoor aviary through the winter. My birds

always seem in perfect health and are fed on barley, wheat, maize, dari,

and lettuce. Their floor outside is earth, inside asphalt.


Henry Fother gill, Major.


Sir,—C ertainly, Mr. Buxton, in his paper on the Parrots he turned

loose at Northrepps, found Cockatoos too hardy. They would stay out in all

weathers, and get their toes frost-bitten.


And the Platycerci, to which class Bauer’s belongs, are, I think, more

impatient of great heat, than of cold,


F. G. Dutton.



CROWS, ROOKS, ETC.


' Sir, —I see in the November number a query re Crows, Rooks, etc. I

think from Mrs. Keene’s letter that there can be little doubt that the bird is

a Rook. A young Raven by the end of April is much larger than a Rook,

and it hardly grows once it is full feathered. The Crow it is certainly not,

as Crows are not glossy blue black, but much duller birds and of darker

colour, especially about the head. Glossy blue-black exactly describes the

colour of a young Rook in its first year. The distance from the line of

demarcation, between the ordinary feathers and those covering the nostril,

to the tip of the beak measured along the middle line, is nearly inches in

the Rook, and only two inches in the Crow, so that if the bird allows itself

to be handled the matter should be easily settled.


Mr. Phillipps’ remarks about the colour of the base of the feathers

hold good, if specimens of both species are at hand to compare, as those on

the Crow are lighter than on the Rook, but are not pure white.


J. Lewis Bonhote.



YELLOW-NAPED AMAZON.


Sir,—W ould you kindly advise me as to my Yellow-naped Amazon

Parrot. I bought it about a mouth ago, and it had then a bad cold and wheezed

and sneezed a great deal. It is better, but one nostril is still a good deal

stopped up and sometimes very wet. It is in fair condition and is just finish¬

ing moulting. I feed on a mixture of Parrot-food, canary, and millet as a

staple,with a small piece (three or four inches) of bread with hot milk poured

over and drained off, sprinkled thickly with sugar, every morning at break-

last. Occasionally nuts, fruit, and twice I have given it a piece of cooked

mutton, the size of a large pea, which it seemed to enjoy. It is fairly tame,

and sits outside its cage, and, after much persuasion, on my hand.


I want to get it into bright hard condition; the feathers seem dull

with no life in them. It eats cuttlefish and eggshell freely. Is there any



