THE PARRAQUET GROUP 



1893 



Love Birds 



pointing wings till it alights on the tree. It associates in flocks of various size, 

 sometimes in vast numbers, and generally many hundreds roost together in some 

 garden or grove. It breeds both in holes in trees, and very commonly, in the south 

 of India, in old buildings, pagodas, tombs, etc. It lays four white eggs. Its breed- 

 ing season is from January to March. Its ordinary flight is rapid, with repeated 

 strokes of the wings, somewhat wavy laterally or arrowy. It has a harsh cry, 

 which it always repeats when in flight, as well as at other times." These parraquets 

 are readily tamed, and in India will breed in that state. If well trained, they are 

 fairly quiet; but if their tempers have been unduly tried, they are wont to exercise 

 their powers of screaming. 



The pretty little parrots (of which a group is represented in our 

 illustration), commonly known as love birds, derive both their popular 

 and scientific titles on account of the attachment the pairs appear to entertain for 

 one another. Mr. W. T. Greene remarks, however, that a single bird will live in 

 captivity for years without any apparent signs of pining, and will actually become 

 more attached to its owner than if it formed one of a pair. And he adds that the rea- 

 son why if one of a pair dies the other generally soon follows its companion, is that 

 the constitutions of the two have been undermined by the hardships of the voyage 

 to Europe; thus demolishing the pretty fable that the death of the survivor of a pair 

 is due to inconsolable grief at the loss of its mate. 



The love birds, of which the larg- 

 est does not exceed six and one-half 

 inches in length, differ from all the 

 other members of the subfamily, in 

 that the thick and deep beak has no 

 ridge along the inferior surface of the 

 symphysis of its lower mandible; and 

 they are further distinguished by the 

 shortness of the tail, which is marked 

 with a black band near the extremity. 

 Their skeletons are peculiar, in that 

 the furcula is absent. In the latter 

 respect, as well as in their small size, 

 and the occasional difference in the 

 coloration of the two sexes, the love 

 birds resemble the American parrot- 

 lets (p. 1883), with which they have 

 frequently been classed. They may, 

 however, be at once distinguished 

 from the latter by their rounded in- 

 stead of pointed tail feathers. The GRAY-HEADED LOVE BIRDS. 

 love birds, of which there are seven 



species, are confined to Africa south of the Sahara and Madagascar, although they 

 have been introduced into the Mascarene islands. The rosy-faced species (Agapor- 

 nis roseicollis} belongs to a group in which the rump and upper tail coverts are blue 



