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aviary during the night, and as high up as it can get ; and, owing

to their insistence in passing the nights hanging on to the wire

protection over my bird-room window (they were always shut in

at night, and often during the day when cold), one of my birds

this winter took a chill and died. In all three species the idea

seems to be of roosting just under some projection, for the

purpose of concealment, just as if they were in the habit, in their

wild state, of roosting clinging to the trunk of a tree, pressino-

most likely into some convenient crevice, just below some thick

projecting bough or other over-hanging protection. Except in

the case of the sitting female, I think they never roost in holes,

or one might suppose that, like the Carolina Conure, the}^ sleep

hanging on to the insides of large hollow trunks, or possibly in

.spouts of the gum trees. When not roosting as mentioned

above, they prefer some thin natural branch or bush, fixed up at

the highest possible point. Probably the same instinct prevails

in the Paradise Parrakeet, but it is practically latent in the less

nervous Redrump, the most free breeder in captivity of the

^enus.


This spring, I have shut up my surviving female with a

young male Redrump, but nothing has come of it. The Golden-

shoulder has mostly received his advances with maidenl}' fear

and trepidation, which is all very pretty and proper but distinctly

aggravating. Probably, also, her feelings towards him are not

unmixed with scorn, not so much on account of his 5'outh, for he

will get the better of that, but on account of his comparatively

plain dress, coarse figure, and plebeian name. Is she not

indeed, a Golden-shouldered Parrakeet and he but a vulo-ar

Redrump ! Nevertheless, for all that, twice recently have I

-caught her on the sly making gracious advances, which have

been received with becoming humility, so there is room for hope

that, another year, if we should all be alive and well, somethino-

■of the nature of a nest may come to pass after all.


This species is smaller and of more slender build than the

Many-coloured Parrakeet ; and the chief points in the plumao-e

that catch the eye may be indicated as follows : —


Adult male. A light-yellow band across the forehead, each

•end dispersing among and washing the feathers around the e3^es ;

a large triangular patch of deep black covers the crown, the base

resting on the yellow frontal band, while the apex is extended

down the centre of the back of the head and merges in the lio-ht

greyish brown of the nape, upper back, and neighbouring

regions ; lower back and upper tail-coverts light blue, inclinino-



