GREEN PARRAKEET 31 



with their bright-coloured talkative denizens, and 

 their noisy chatter all day long drowning every other 

 sound. They are extremely sociable and breed in 

 communities. When a person enters the wood, their 

 subdued chatter suddenly ceases, and during the 

 ominous silence a hundred pairs of black beady eyes 

 survey the intruder from the nests and branches ; 

 and then follow a whirring of wings and an outburst 

 of screams that spread the alarm throughout the 

 woods. The nests are frequented all the year, and 

 it is rare to find a large one unattended by some of 

 the birds any time during the day. In summer and 

 autumn they feed principally on the thistle ; first 

 the flower is cut up and pulled to pieces for the sake 

 of the green kernel, and later they eat the fallen seed 

 on the ground. Their flight is rapid, with quick 

 flutters of the wings, which seem never to be raised 

 to the level of the body. They pay no regard to a 

 Polyborus or Milvago (the Carrion Eagle and Carrion 

 Hawk), but mob any other bird of prey appearing 

 in the woods, all the Parrakeets rising in a crowd and 

 hovering about it with angry screams. 



The nests are suspended from the extremities of 

 the branches, to which they are firmly woven. New 

 nests consist of only two chambers, the porch and 

 the nest proper, and are inhabited by a single pair 

 of birds. Successive nests are added, until some of 

 them come to weigh a quarter of a ton, and contain 

 material enough to fill a large cart. Thorny twigs, 

 firmly interwoven, form the only material, and there 

 is no lining in the breeding-chamber, even in the 



