242



On Bourke's Pairakeels.



like all grass-parrakeets, to feed; contented with canary seed

and plenty of flowering grasses, sow-thistle, chickweed, etc.

when in season.


Probably, too, they would nest in a large cage, if a suit¬

able nesting-box or barrel be placed outside, with a hole through

which they could enter.


My birds are fond of dandelion flowers, and I also give

them sometimes a plant of young lettuce.


Let us hope later on I may be able to give an account of

their nesting.


As to the colouring of the sexes, whilst still in immature

plumage, I am a little at sea. The hen bird seems to me to have

the smaller and flatter head, with a whitish frontal band ; the

cock bird, a rounder head, with a blue frontal band, and before

this appears, that is, before they moult their nest-plumage, the

brown feathers on the crown of the male come fully to the cere

of the beak. About my unrelated pair, I am pretty sure ; but in

the other two birds, the one with the flatter head and broader

forehead and the whitish frontal band, has the pink on the breast

much brighter than the one with the rounder head and more

distinctly marked blue frontal band ; but this may mean that it

is merely an older bird, and more advanced in its change of

plumage. At any rate, one may take it that the female lacks the

blue frontal band, and is decidedly duller in her tints than the

male. I think, too, that the whitish feathers round the eyes and

about the face are more conspicuous in the female.


If, on some other occasion, I can furnish further notes on

this lovely and rare Parrakeet, most gladly will I do so.



P.S.—Since writing this article, my Parrakeets have moulted

more fully. The forehead of the male bird is blue;

whilst the female has no blue, but a very narrow whitish

band over the cere : her lacing on the wings is much

less defined.



