Some Experiences of Mealy Rosellas. 173


slow in getting her new wing feathers, she was caged and put

near a clump of tall evergreens, where her partner spent most of

his time. He was very attentive to her and used often to feed her

through the wire-netting, but one cold morning he was, to my dis¬

appointment, picked up dead, so all my care for him had been

in vain ; probably he had never had a very strong constitution.


The first pair, however, stayed and flourished, and by the

end of October had established themselves in a nest-box I had put

up in a tall oak tree. For some weeks we saw nothing of the hen.

Then she began to make occasional appearances with her mate, and,

in spite of the unfavourable weather [for it was now winter], I had

great hopes of young being reared, but the day arrived—how well

most of us know it—when the old birds went no more to their nest.

With dreary forebodings a ladder was brought and placed against the

tree. Out of the box were turned the mangled corpses of some

baby Mealies, a black American squirrel, and a vast quantity of dry

leaves and other household comforts which the latter had collected

for his use. I sincerely trust that the night following his eviction

was the coldest and most uncomfortable he spent in his life !


But the bereaved parents were not discouraged, and a few

weeks later were nesting in another box at some distance from the

scene of their first venture. After the hen had been absent for a

month I noticed a sinister circumstance, her mate was accompanying

the second hen (who had been released seveial weeks previously)

and was feeding her and generally treating her as his espoused wife.

Broadtail Parrakeets are, with individual exceptions, models of con¬

jugal fidelity ; so I was not surprised, on examination of the nest-

box, to find that my worst fears were realized and that it was empty.

Evidently the sitting bird had been killed, probably by an owl, as

the entrance holes to the boxes were at that time far too large.


After a short time, the Mealy and his new wife were joined

by a hen Brown’s Parrakeet, who had fallen in love with him and

made strenuous efforts latterly, I am sorry to say with some success,

to monopolize his affections. But fate was still against me; the

cock Mealy, like all his tribe, was an aggressive bird, and for many

weeks his supremacy had been unchallenged in that part of the

garden which he considered his particular domain. One afternoon,



