139G The Zoologist — October, 18G8. 



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 

 nearly fledged one of the cockatoos thought it right to murder him. 

 The year after the same pair brought up two children, and it was really 

 a beautiful sight to see tlie family party flying about, always together, 

 and living on the most loving terms ; but the mother and her eldest 

 son both, unhappily, were shot. Afterwards one of the common white 

 cockatoos and the hen Leadbeater (a very large rose-coloured cockatoo) 

 dug out their own nest in the rotten branch of an acacia tree, laid two 

 eggs and brought up the young birds. These hybrids are very hand- 

 some, but do not resemble either of the parents, having very beautiful 

 crests of a red-orange colour; otherwise they are perfectly white. The 

 parent birds were so pleased with the success of this experiment that 

 last year they repeated it, and brought up three young ones, thus 

 making up a flock of seven with the two first born. Unluckily, one of 

 them was shot at in the winter, and came home severely wounded ; 

 after which the other birds would not permit him to associate with 

 them, and he always lived in a bush near the house, quite apart from 

 the rest. One day I moved him into the garden, upon which some of 

 the other cockatoos — not, however, his own relations — fell upon him 

 the moment ray back was turned, and killed him. One of those traits 

 of character which, as I said just now, these birds, and in fact most 

 wild animals, share with human nature, is their general dislike of 

 cripples. Another of them was also injured, so I took him away to 

 Surrey, where, in spite of his broken wing and broken leg, an old 

 cockatoo befriended him, and treated him as her own son. This year 

 we hoped that the same pair would have nested again ; but unluckily 

 a pair of gray parrots anticipated them in the possession of the hollow 

 branch, and, having made a nest in it, brought up the two young gray 

 parrots that you have just seen, and which are afflicted with the most 

 awful temper. The maternal instinct of another pair of gray parrots 

 took a very absurd form. This year a cat made her lodging in one of 

 the nest-boxes, and brought up her kittens in it; and two of the gray 

 parrots, who had not been industrious enough to lay eggs and have a 

 family of their own, were seized with the idea that these kittens were 

 their children. They kept up a constant warfare with the old cat, and 

 whenever she left the box one of them used to get in and sit with the 

 kittens ; and they were constantly in close attendance, even when the 

 mother cat was at home. 



