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Dr. A. G. Butler,



confiding, but certainly not talented, and I cannot say that I

admired it. Cockatiels I have twice had and from my second pair I

bred one male ; I still have his father ; this is one of the few

Parrakeets which one can trust with smaller birds : it is pretty, but

noisy and is very fond of vain repetitions.


I had a pair of Quaker Parrakeets in 1892, but did not much

care for them and eventually sold them to somebody who took a

fancy to them ; they are hard biters, but when they attempted to

bite me I got hold of the lower mandible so that the bird had to bite

upon my thumb-nail ; when it began fo pinch too hard I pressed on

the lower mandible and it left go at once. Like other Conures this

species is very destructive and rather noisy, but playful and con¬

sequently rather amusing. In 1903 or 1904 I purchased a pair of

Passerine Parrotlets, being tempted by their lovely colouring : the

hen died shortly afterwards but the cock lived until 1906 when it

was murdered by a hen Grey-headed Lovebird which I had given it

as a wife : if I could be sure of keeping and breeding this species I

should like to have an aviary full ; its beauty alone would be

sufficient to satisfy me.


Of talking-parrots I have only kept the Yellow-fronted

Amazon and the Grey Parrot, both excellent talkers and fond of

me ; but the Amazon used to fly into frightful rages when it saw

anybody who was inclined to tease it. These birds when

acclimatized are very hardy and long-lived and for anybody

who only wishes to keep a single bird, I would always recommend a

Grey Parrot or Amazon, bought when quite young and taught to

talk by its purchaser. Of course most of these birds are incorrectly

fed from the time when they are imported, are more often than not

treated as though they were human beings, offered all kinds of

unwholesome table-scraps by their owners, and consequently soon get

out of condition and die young. I have had two species of the genus

Palceornis, the Pose-headed Parrakeet, of which I purchased two

young pairs in 1893 ; of these one pair had been pinioned and did

not live long. From the other pair I bred one female, but these

pretty Parrakeets killed several smaller birds in their aviary and the

young bird so persecuted her mother that I had to confine the latter

in a flight cage to save her life. I sent the father and daughter to a



