330



Rcviczvs.



shrieks, their beauty, their hardiness, and their readiness to

breed in confinement, all commend them to the amateur. So

ready are they to breed, that Mr. Seth-Smith’s record of various

hybrids, including one so strange as that between a Rosella and

a Cockatiel, is not the least interesting part of this section.


In some of his quotations from other works, once or twice

the fact is dwelt upon that the Platycerci not only eat seeds, but

also insects. Does this help us at all to an explanation of feather-

eating. I have not so extensive an experience of Parrot-keeping

as many of our members must have, but I have only found this

trick amongst the Psephoti and in a Nymphicus. Are they seek¬

ing for some substitute for insects?


I have a pair of Brotogerys tirica lately given to me, of

which one was a feather-destroyer. But as I found feathers in

the cage I think the culprit was a feather-picker and not a

feather-eater. And as the feathers are now coming, it was pro¬

bably owing to wrong diet. But if Platycerci are accustomed to

some insect food, they may find the want of it.


I conclude by again saying that this section of Parrakeets

should be got by everyone who proposes to keep any of that

most charming section, the Platycercince.


F. G. Dutton.



ST. KIDD A. *


There are few spots in the British Islands so interesting to

the ornithologist as St. Kilda. Here the Fulmar has its head¬

quarters, and its habits in the nesting season may be observed as

at no other place. The Fork-tailed Petrel too is plentiful, and a

form of the common Wren is peculiar to the Islands. Many of

the common sea-birds are here extremely abundant, and the

islands form the richest of feasts to those who delight in the

study of sea-birds in their breeding haunts.


St. Kilda and its Birds is the title of a most interesting

lecture delivered by Dr. J. Wiglesworth before the Liverpool

Biological Society, and now printed in book-form and beautifully

illustrated by photographs.



St. Kilda and its Birds, by J. Wiglesworth, M.D., F.R.C.P. Loudon: K. H. Pouter.



