on Adelaide Parrakeets.



77



and I am rather doubtful if she ever came off at all, certainly we

never saw her do so. At the end of her long period of seclusion,

she resumed a more normal mode of existence, flying about with her

mate and feeding busily. I was hoping for the appearance of another

brood of six, but in this I was disappointed, for although the young

bird which at length emerged was as strong as I could wish, no

others followed, and it became evident that if more had been hatched,

some misfoitune must have overtaken them while still in the nest.

Another piece of ill-luck followed, for very shortly after the appear¬

ance of his child the cock Adelaide was picked up very thin and

weak and evidently in a bad way. His condition aroused in my

mind grave fears of tuberculosis and septic fever—the two fell diseases

against which I am for ever waging a none too successful warfare;

but as it turned out, I need not have been anxious, for when the bird

died the post mortem revealed inflammation of the lungs as the sole

cause. Poor fellow! it seemed hard luck, that after enduring the fogs

and frost of two winters, unscathed, he should have had his brief

but useful career ig'nominiously terminated in July by an ordinary

cold caught in the moult. If I had only “cooked” him up for a

few days in a room with a temperature of 80—90° {the sovereign

remedy for most sick parrots) I might very likely have saved him !


The fortunes of the young birds in the matter of nesting, fared

no better than those of their parents. The hen which had paired

with the Pennant, lost her mate in the early spring and took up with

a Yellow-bellied Parrakeet (P. flaviventris ). Both she and her sister

evidently nested, as they vanished for many weeks, while their mates

remained. But no young have made their appearance and they are

now long over-due.


To keep up my stock and introduce fresh blood, I have

lately secured three more Adelaides—two cocks and a hen. One of

the former I hope will make a pair with the old breeding bird; the

-other—or the hen, I shall reserve as a mate for this year’s young one

whose sex is at present uncertain. Next year, if all goes well, I may

have eighteen young Adelaides ; if it doesn’t — but we won’t think

about that. How could one bear the present trials and past dis¬

appointments of aviculture if one did not always contemplate a

preternaturally roseate future ?



