GREEN PARRAKEET 31 
with their bright-coloured talkative denizens, and 
their noisy chatter all day long drowning every other 
sound. They are extremely sociable and breed in 
communities. When a person enters the wood, their 
subdued chatter suddenly ceases, -and during the 
ominous silence a hundred pairs of black beady eyes 
survey the intruder from the nests and branches ; 
and then follow a whirring of wings and an outburst 
of screams that spread the alarm throughout the 
woods. The nests are frequented all the year, and 
it is rare to find a large one unattended by some of 
the birds any time during the day. In summer and 
autumn they feed principally on the thistle; first 
the flower is cut up and pulled to pieces for the sake 
of the green kernel, and later they eat the fallen seed 
on the ground. Their flight is rapid, with quick 
flutters of the wings, which seem never to be raised 
to the level of the body. They pay no regard to a 
Polyborus or Milvago (the Carrion Eagle and Carrion 
Hawk), but mob any other bird of prey appearing 
in the woods, all the Parrakeets rising in a crowd and 
hovering about it with angry screams. 
The nests are suspended from the extremities of 
the branches, to which they are firmly woven. New 
nests consist of only two chambers, the porch and 
the nest proper, and are inhabited by a single pair 
of birds. Successive nests are added, until some of 
them come to weigh a quarter of a ton, and contain 
material enough to fill a large cart. Thorny twigs, 
firmly interwoven, form the only material, and there 
is no lining in the breeding-chamber, even in the 
