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Review: Parrakeets.



REVIEW.



PARRAKEETS*


Aviculturists, and especially those who care about

Parrots, will welcome the appearance of Parts II. & III. of

Mr. Setli-Smith’s book on the Parrakeets.


In these two he finishes the Conurince and the Palceor-

nithince, comprising amongst the former the Quaker Parrakeet,

the Blue-winged Parrakeet, and the Brotogerys family. We have

full and interesting accounts given us of the Cactus, Brown-

throated, Patagonian, and Carolina Conures. It is rather to be

regretted that, if the Carolina Conure is to become extinct, a

coloured plate was not given of it.


No doubt Mr. Seth-Smith intends bis work to be a help to

the aviculturist, and there is nothing for which the beginner is

more grateful than good accurate plates. It is very difficult to

construct a bird to the mind’s eye from the most accurate

description. And Mr. Setli-Smith’s plates are all so good that

they make us, like Oliver Twist, “ ask for more.” It would

have been a good thing also to have one of Henicognathus. It

is very possible that a record of rare birds may be lost from

people, who have come across them in captivity, not in the least

recognising what they were.


Perhaps it should be taken as the note of a good book

that it should make 11s regret that the whole of it cannot be

plums, like Mr. Phillipps’ description of the Tui.


The account of the Quaker Parrakeet is almost better than

the bird itself deserves. The Author must have missed the

account of the escaped one in the New Forest, which appeared

either in this Magazine or in The Feathered World, or he would

not have failed to insert the curious story of this bird making

itself a nest in a thatch.f


His accounts of the interesting section of Palceornis are



* Parrakeets, being a Practical-Handbook to those species kept in captivit3 - ;

by D. Seth-Smith, F.Z.S., M.B.O.U. Parts II. & III. London : R. H. Porter, 7 Princes

Street, Cavendish Square, W.


t See Avic. Mag., Vol. VII., p. 86-7, also Zoologist, Jan., 1903 .—Ed.



