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possession is I suppose remarkable, for of all tlie Lorikeets the

Musky has perhaps the worst record for fits. A lady, who was

many years in Australia, told me that the Colonists seldom

attempt to keep it. One she herself had tried in Australia soon

died in a fit. Even at the London Zoological Gardens (I am

writing this without book, but I think correctly), where with

some of the Lorikeets they have been very successful, they seem

to have been rather the reverse with this species, judging by the

dates of receipt given from time to time in the Parrot House. I

need hardly say that my Musky was not fed on seed, to which,

indeed, he always had access, but which he never touched so far

as I know. Talking about food for Lorikeets, I chanced some four

years ago to visit a shop just after a cageful of these birds had

been fed. The food consisted of thick slices of bread and butter,

which they attacked as greedily as a lot of hungry pigs attack

their evening meal.—Now, please, do not go off and say that I

recommend bread and butter as a food for Lorikeets !


My Musky became very tame and confiding, often flying

on to my head, and also on to my hand when I brought out his

sop in the morning. So little did he fear me and my threats

that nothing would induce him to go to bed before bed-time. On

a cold day I would sometimes endeavour to drive the birds into

the shelter of the birdroom before dusk : seating himself on a high

perch, he would defy me. I would try and frighten him with a

long-handled net, placing the net over him ; but he knew I

wouldn’t hurt him, and stuck to the perch. When the proper

time came, however, lie would give a wild derisive shriek and

dash into the birdroom. Nevertheless I betrayed his trust in

the end, for when, on 31st March, I passed him and the Tuipara

on to another member of the Society, he allowed me to catch

him almost without a flutter.


The members of this species are not nearly so savage as

the Trichoglossi. Except occasionally with some of the Psittaci,

in a large aviary they do not interfere with other birds, except

indirectly by going into their nesting boxes. The same remark

applies to the Scaly-breasted Lorikeet, Psitteuteles chlorolepidohis,

if I may judge by a single pair which came into my possession

many years ago. Before the}'' reached me they had been fed and

moulted on canary seed alone, and had lost nearly all of their

conspicuous markings, being mostly yellow-green. The female,

too, was in a decline, and I failed to save her. The want of

proper food may or may xiot have been the cause of the dull

plumage of the two and of the death of the one. No Lory or

Lorikeet with me has ever lost an atom of colour.



