178 TALKS ABOUT BIRDS 



rotten tree or a bank, if they do not find one 

 ready made. This republican parrot is the 

 quaker parrakeet of South America, which is 

 often to be seen caged over here. It is about 

 as big as a tame dove, green with a grey 

 breast, and is an amusing pet if it can be made 

 tame. Its nests are made of sticks in trees, 

 and a whole flock make their abodes one 

 against another, so that they form a sort of 

 block of twiggy buildings divided up into 

 separate rooms. Each room has a porch over 

 the entrance, so that it is hard for an enemy 

 to get in ; but if one room is taken up it does 

 not matter to the birds, as there is no com- 

 munication, and an opossum one of the worst 

 enemies to bird-life in America has been 

 found living in one of the rooms of these 

 mansions of the quakers, without making them 

 desert the rest. A more harmless guest is a 

 kind of teal, which, like so many ducks in the 

 warmer climates, likes to nest in trees. 



Another South American bird which builds 

 a clever nest and is likely to have it stolen, or 

 at any rate taken as soon as it is " to let," 

 is the oven-bird, a creature something like a 

 thrush, but with no spots on the breast and 



