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MISCELLANEOUS. 



Acclimatization of Parrots at Northrepps Hall, Norfolk, 



[At the recent Meeting of the British Association, the Members, 

 among other invitations, were invited to pay a visit to Northrepps 

 Hall, the residence of the Dowager Lady Buxton. While partaking 

 of the hospitality provided by the accomplished hostess, the guests 

 were deHghted and astonished by the parrots that darted in and 

 out among the trees or flew over their heads across the lawn, their 

 brilliant plumage glancing in the radiance of the setting sun. After 

 tea, Mr. Charles Buxton, M.P., read the following paper. "We are 

 sorry to learn that these birds, which at one time amounted to 

 nearly fifty, have been reduced now to some twenty-four, owing 

 to the vicious propensity of gamekeepers and so-called sportsmen to 

 wantonly destroy every stranger that may come across them.] 



I HAVE undertaken to tell you a little about the experiment that 

 has been tried here of letting parrots fly wild about the place ; but 

 though it has been a source of great interest and amusement to us, 

 I much fear that there is very httle to relate that could be thought 

 worthy of the attention, even in their holiday moments, of an 

 Association for the Advancement of Science. Nor can I honestly 

 say that the attempt to acclimatize these birds (that is to say, to 

 establish them as an addition to our English fauna) has in that 

 respect been attended by success. It is true that they have several 

 times made nests, and on five of these occasions the young have 

 been brought to maturity ; and were it not ** for those vile gims," 

 the birds would flourish extremely; for illness and death from 

 natural causes would seem to be almost unknown among them. 

 But, unhappily, they share in many of the characteristics of human 

 nature, and in this one, above aU, that they do not know when they 

 are well off, and eveiy now and then they are seized with a desire 

 to see the world, and take flights to a distance, twelve or fifteen 

 miles perhaps, and sometimes much more ; and then they are almost 

 sure to fall a prey to some gamekeeper or lad who is keeping crows, 

 and who is astonished by seeing these brilliant apparitions among 

 the trees. As regards their breeding, a pair of cockatoos led the 

 way by most unsuccessfully attempting to make a nest in one of the 

 chimneys ; before it was half finished it gave way, and the nest 

 and cockatoos fell to the bottom. It being summer time, they were 

 only discovered after spending a day and a night among the soot, 

 and when they were brought out they looked like two dwarf chimney 

 sweeps. They persevered, however, and made another nest in one 

 of the boxes that had been hung against the gables of the house in 

 hopes of such an event. They laid two eggs ; but though the hen 

 cockatoo sat most perseveringly till September, it was all in vain — 

 the eggs were addled. Afterwards a pair of green parrots, a cock 

 of the Amazonian and a hen of the Honduras breed, made a nest in 

 one of the boxes, and brought up a young one ; but when he was 



