1398 The Zoologist — October, 18(38. 



couple of years ago, of the scene I was watching, and which recurred 

 morning after morning as I sat reading iu my study at my house in 

 Surrey : — " The parrots' breakfast having been put in the basket, a pair 

 of white cockatoos, who had been anxiously watching the proceedings 

 from the tree above, swooped down, and set instantly to work. A 

 Bengal parrakeet, with long green wings, presently comes skimming 

 up, and flutters for a few minutes almost perpendicularly in the air, 

 exactly in the attitude so often represented by Mr. Gould in his book 

 of the ' Hummiug Birds,' with the head and tail curved inwards, and 

 the wings extended. Two or three rose-coloured cockatoos follow, 

 and hang about on the tripod, but do not venture to take their places 

 on the edge of the basket while their fiercer brethren are at work ; but 

 presently one of the huge white cockatoos with yellow crests comes 

 swinging heavily down over the lawn, putting all the lesser ones to 

 llight in a moment. But they soon gather round again, and a lory, 

 resplendent in red aud green, darts through the air, and lights on the 

 top of the tripod, his burnished hues contrasting well with the pure 

 white of the cockatoo below ; and the group is completed by a Cornish 

 chough, whose glossy blue-black plumage and orange beak and legs 

 are not the least striking of their costumes : he always at once engages 

 in a fierce strife with his rivals, aud his long beak gives him the 

 advantage over them." 



I can assure you, ladies and gentlemen, that a spectacle of this sort, 

 which I have witnessed hundreds of times, is one of exquisite beauty, 

 especially on a sparkling winter's morning with the snow on the 

 ground, when the colours of the birds seem peculiarly gorgeous. Nor 

 do they appear to be injured by the cold: the gray parrots have the 

 sense to get into a house that was built for shelter to them, but none 

 of the others can ever be persuaded to enter it, and they live in the 

 woods the whole year through ; but even last winter, when the ther- 

 mometer in my neighbourhood fell six degrees below zero, though one 

 cockatoo unaccountably disappeared, all the rest appeared to be as full 

 of life and spirits as possible. In fact, so long as birds are well fed 

 and in good health, 1 do not believe that cold is fatal to them. Their 

 migration depends altogether on food, aud not on the fear of cold : 

 even the delicate little longtailed titmouse, and the still more delicate 

 little goldencrested wren, and numbers of other seemingly tender birds, 

 remain with us the whole winter through without appearing to suffer. 

 The fact is that birds have such a wonderful great-coat, such a dense 

 mass of down below their leathers, and have also, if I am not mistaken, 



