PARROTS AND WOODPECKERS 223 



keeping them either alone or only along with birds 

 whose ordinary cage-dietary does not include sattu ; 

 but no remedial measure has yet, in so far as I know, 

 been found in that of the orioles. The difficulty in 

 dealing with the latter bird is, however, probably 

 also a dietetic one, as it seems to be easy to keep 

 the maroon species, whose general habits are very 

 like those of the commoner kinds, in perfect health 

 under the very conditions that rapidly prove fatal 

 to its relatives. It is easy to provide carnivorous 

 and graminivorous birds, with suitable food, and 

 hence we find them generally standing captivity 

 very well. Even with them, however, mischief 

 occasionally arises from the ease with which an 

 unfailing supply of food can be obtained an 

 abnormal condition which sometimes occasions the 

 development of malformations, such as the over- 

 growth of the upper mandible that is often to be 

 seen in pheasants and parrots in confinement. 



The sound of the loud, wild, chattering scream 

 of the golden-backed woodpecker, Brachypternus 

 aurantius, 1 is never long absent from any well- 

 wooded garden near Calcutta, and every now and 

 then one of the birds may be seen whilst it crosses 

 over from tree to tree. When seen in certain 

 directions and under suitable light they look like 

 actual streaks of gold, as they leap along through 

 the air with noisily whirring wings; and, as they 

 almost always scream aloud on taking wing, there 



1 It is a little smaller than the common English green woodpecker. 



