130 



PARROTS. 



whether they were content with deserted domiciles. The number of eggs is not 

 mentioned. 



From their small size and engaging manners the love-birds are great favourites 

 in captivity, although they are all more or less delicate. The rosy-faced species 

 is, however, the most hardy, and will readily breed in confinement, often producing 

 two broods in the year. That love-birds have not always the angelic disposition 

 commonly attributed to them, is indicated by the following extract from a 

 correspondent of Mr. Greene's, who writes, that "I have a red-faced love-bird. 



to which it would puzzle you 

 to apply the epithet * amiable,' 

 for a more surly, ill-tempered 

 little glutton never existed She 

 quarrels with her husband, whom 

 she drives about, compels to feed 

 her with partly digested food from 

 his craw, and then thrashes if he 

 does not sit closely enough to her, 

 or if he dares to move before she 

 is ready. In fact, a more hen- 

 pecked wretch never lived, and 

 yet he seems to like it, and to be 

 specially proud of his beautiful but 

 utterly unamiable wife." 



The last group of this great subfamily is formed by the curious 

 hanging parrots, — so called from their habit of sleeping head down- 

 wards, suspended by their feet from a bough. These parrots, which are about the 

 same size as love-birds, comprise twenty species, ranging from India and the 

 Philippine Islands through the Malayan region as far east as Duke of York 

 Island. They differ from all the other members of the subfamily in the thinness 

 of the beak, in which the length exceeds the depth ; the upper mandible being 

 long and but little curved, while the profile of the lower one slopes upwards with 

 very little convexity. In all of them the under surface of the remiges and 

 tail-feathers is of a bright verditer blue. They are brilliantly coloured, with 

 green as the predominant tint; and Dr. Guillemard describes a species from the 



A GROUP OF HANGING PARROTS. 



Hanging Parrots. 



