tone of defiance towards tlie Editor, or towards anyone who ventures to

disagree with the writer ?


I hope that Mr. Farrar will not take umbrage at what I have, I trust

in courteous language, tried to say ; for I feel, and probably many others

with me, that courtesy* and not too much prominence given to ‘ thinks I,’

are two of the most advisable means for carrying on any' correspondence in

a proper spirit.


In any' case, whether the young Parrakeets bred by' Mr. Farrar are

pure Pennants or not, it is a very interesting experience, and one decidedly

not to he kept in the background.


Hubert I). Asteey.



Sir,—S eeing in the letter of the Rev. C. D. Farrar that he is the first

to rear Pennant Parrakeets—I have bred about twenty in the last six years (c),

and have had hens breed freely that are bred in my' outdoor unheated

garden-aviary'; but all my birds, when in adult plumage, are identical. The

males are larger, have much flatter heads, and are more aggressive in the

Spring. I have had as many as six in one nest. I find they 7 so often die

after they 7 have left the nest about ten days. I have only one pair now. The

seed, etc., should be put where it is no trouble for them to find it.


This season I have bred three King Parrakeets. eight Peach-faced

Lovebirds, three Red-headed Rosellas, and several Budgerigars. My Red-

mantled Parrakeets had two young ones : they died when about two weeks

old.


Edwd. Le Heup Cocicsedge.



Sir,—I do not think that Mr. Farrar is right about Pennants. One

■of mine has just died, and post mortem examination proved it to be a hen—

there was not a single green feather in her tail, and the only differences

from the male, that I could see, were that the head was smaller and the

plumage not quite so bright.


(Mrs.) M. B. Lancaster.



I have carefully examined the series of skins of the Pennant

Parrakeet (commonly 7 called Platycercus pennanti, but P. elegans in the Cat.

Birds Brit. Mus.) and of the Adelaide Parrakeet (P. adelaidce) at the British

Museum, in the company of Dr. Butler.


There are several skins of the first named which are marked as being

those of females, and these are distinguished from the rest by' their smaller

size and slightly duller colour—but not, so far as I could see, by' any such

differences of tint as are stated by 7 Mr. Farrar to exist in the case of his

Parrakeets.


If it be admitted that Mr. Pkirrar’s female is a true example of

P, elegans, he is still as far off as ever from proving that all females of the

species differ from the male in the same wav as his does. Mr. Farrar’s

female Parrakeet may be a Pennant, or it may be an Adelaide, or it may be

neither—I am not concerned to prove what it is. All I say about it is

simply this,—that if the hen in question differs from the male Pennant in


(c) And see also a case of breeding Platycercus elegans mentioned in the U. K. Foreign

Cage-Bird Soc, Report for January, 1893 .—Ed.



