on Boiirkes Parrakeeis.



241



same way, too, of rapid fluttering of wings with that whistling

sound, whilst they hold to a perch with their feet.


And these characteristics are not to be seen, as far as I

can tell, in other members of the genus, such as the Blue¬

winged and the Turquoisine. The Bourke’s can sit, like their

cousins, very still and solemn, but then all of a moment comes

in the resemblance to Budgerigars : and I have never seen my

Blue-winged Parrakeets act in that way, nor do I remember that

Turquoisiues do either. The Bourke’s is the only member of the

genus that has the scaly feathers on the wings : the rest are all

green.


But of course it is sheer heresy to suggest that the Bourke

had anything to do with the Budgerigar in past ages, isn't it?

For all that, they do very often remind me of them : which gives

me the thought—Surely, sonieda}^, another member of the genus

Melopsittaats will be found.


I have had the good fortune to secure a female Bourke

after the arrival of the first four birds, one of which died of

pneumonia, so that I have been able to put one of the males

with this newer female, thus feeling assured that they are un¬

related. Along with this female there was another, which, alas!

died the day after I bought it: quite a baby bird, in nestling

plumage, the whole head and upperparts an uniform dusty

brown, and the pink and blue on the underparts very faint

indeed : evidently a bird hatched later than my others.


But with this unrelated pair I hope for satisfactory results

in the shape of a family. They have moulted well, and the male

resembles my painting, or rather, I have tried to make my

painting resemble him ! and I should suppose that with another

moult his blue frontal band, and the blue on the shoulders, will

be brighter. It is a different blue to the upper and under tail-

coverts ; indeed, at the edge of the shoulders it inclines to

violet, when compared with the forget-me-not tint of the tail-

coverts.


That they are, when acclimatized, easy to keep in captivity

I can well believe ; being hardy, to judge from the account of

the pair kept some twenty years ago by Mr. Groom in Camden

Town—which pair I can well remember seeing—and easy, too,



