196 FEATHERED FRIENDS. 



the female is rather the larger of the two and has a 

 slightly narrower red frontlet. 



When I went to purchase a pair in East India Dock 

 Road, there were quite a number of them together in 

 a large cage in the back yard, and I left it to the im- 

 porter to pick me out a male and female, if he could. 

 When he had secured the birds, he said, with his 

 usual frankness: "I have done my best; I think they 

 are a pair, but I cannot guarantee them." 



Well, I took them home and turned them into a 

 compartment of my large garden aviary, where they 

 passed the remainder of the summer and the following 

 winter, which was a severe one, if my memory serves 

 me rightly; but they suffered no inconvenience from 

 the cold, and never took the slightest notice of each 

 other. In the early part of the following summer the 

 Parrakeets were transferred to a friend, in whose aviary 

 they at once paired and brought up a brood successfully. 



This first attempt of theirs was soon followed by 

 another, and yet another with equally brilliant results, 

 so that I was forced to the conclusion either that my 

 aviary did not come up to the birds' ideas of the fit- 

 ness of things, or that I had been unduly hasty in 

 assuming that they would not breed in confinement. 



Moral, for aviarists under similar circumstances : 

 Patience. 



My pair were extremely fond of oats, which they 

 preferred to any other kind of grain, and [this partiality 



