238 FEATHERED FRIENDS. 



The wings are large for the size of the bird, and 

 are moved by relatively enormous muscles, so that the 

 flight is extremely powerful and capable of being 

 sustained for a considerable length of time: the meas- 

 urement across the extended pinions is about two feet 

 four inches from tip to tip of the flight feathers. The 

 wing-coverts, lesser and greater, are dark bluish-grey, 

 but the first four or five of them on either side are 

 white and form a spot that is more discernible when 

 the birds are flying than when at rest. The primaries 

 are greyish-black, with a narrow white margin on the 

 outer aspect of each; the tertiaries are a dark bluish- 

 grey, and the tail, which is long and broad, consists, 

 when perfect, of twelve feathers slightly rounded at the 

 tips ; the central pair are bluish-grey with darker ends, 

 and the remainder are of a duller shade at the base, 

 lighter in the middle, changing into black at the 

 extremities. The under surface of the tail is greyish- 

 black, traversed about the centre by a band of bluish- 

 grey. The legs and feet are purplish-red and the nails 

 dark brown. 



Although there are instances recorded of these birds 

 becoming quite tame and familiar with their owners, 

 even to the extent of eating from the hand and alighting 

 on the shoulder of the person who fed them, neither 

 the pair to which I have been referring, nor others of 

 the same species that I subsequently had were ever 

 even moderately tame, though possibly they might 



