156 FEATHERED FRIENDS. 



were strewn about showed only too plainly what game 

 the Blood-wings (another of their names and most 

 appropriate in this case) had been up to: it was "hare 

 and hounds", evidently, with feathers (those of their 

 defenceless companions) in lieu of shreds of paper. 



But that was not all : I had a good-sized blue-gum 

 tree growing in the aviary in a large pot and the 

 Parrakeets had punished it most severely; but I put 

 that down to their delight at once more beholding one 

 of the common objects of the woodlands wild in which 

 they had first seen the light of day; they had caressed 

 it, a little too demonstratively, perhaps, and had meant 

 no harm. 



But, knives and scissors 1 there was a big clump of 

 English box in the aviary, too, as well as the Eucalyptus, 

 and that, for the moment, I could not find at all! But 

 presently I noticed a litter of leaves and twigs on the 

 ground, and on looking more closely saw the bare 

 skeleton of the box-tree from which those wretches of 

 Blood-wings, in the course of a very few hours, had 

 removed every trace of vegetation, leaving nothing but 

 the bare stumps of the branches of what, only the 

 evening before, had been a handsome shrub of consid- 

 erable size. 



Needless to say my butterfly-net was promptly brought 

 into requisition, and the culprits transferred to the other 

 aviary, there to take their chance with the miscellaneous 

 collection it contained; but they were quite able to 



