Five Nesting Failures and Follies.



Ill



Let me remind others, or inform them as the case may be,

that he has for first cousins such things as the Grey Parrot,

Jardine’s and Meyer’s, and that his native home is Africa, in the

Gambia. As Dr. Hopkinson has told us, and as the illustration

facing p. 107 of Yol. I., 1909—1910, will show you, this Parrot’s

bill is abnormally large, which feature one grows accustomed to in

time, ending by thinking that this fine development of the nasal

organ lends dignity, and if he took snuff what a fine pinch he could

put in, not that he couldn’t put that in anyhow.


[Who was it, bye-the-bye, who on being offered a pinch of

snuff by the Eegent, answered, “I thank your Eoyal Highness, but if

“ the Almighty had intended me to take snuff, he would have

“turned my nose up the other way.”]


My Parrot, I suppose I must say Brown-necked Parrot,

is a frugal eater, but makes no fuss about not being supplied with

ground-nuts. He partakes of a Parrot mixture of various seeds,

drinks water and eats apples.


There is one of this species in the Parrot House of the

London Zoological Society, and I remember seeing one in the Zoo

at Amsterdam ; but they don’t grow on gooseberry bushes. By

no means.



FIVE NESTING FAILURES & FOLLIES.


By C. Barnby Smith.


There are some sins of which one never sincerely repents,

and in my case one of these is the awful waste of time spent

in watching game and marsh birds with nests or young.


There is for me a fascination about this, quite out of all

proportion to possible benefits derived for aviculture.* During

the past season I have watched several interesting nesting failures

in my garden, and give notes of five such.


1. A pair of my Cayenne Spur-winged Plover in March

began to make that incessant chatter and posturing which indicate



* Much knowledge would be lost to aviculturists without this prolonged and

quiet watchfulness by lovers of wild life.—ED.



