176



The Marquis of Tavistock,



absent from home for several weeks at a time. More than once we

gave the couple up for lost, but sooner or later they would return,

looking none the worse for their adventures and lack of artificial food.

In March, the Adelaide found a mate of her own species, and the

newly-wedded couple proceeded to make it extremely plain to the poor

Mealy that honeymoons are intended for two and not three, and

thenceforward she was compelled to lead a solitary existence. About

the same time one of the cock Mealies mysteriously disappeared, and

as I was afraid that the unmated hens would stray and get lost, I

obtained two acclimatized male birds from the Zoological Gardens.

One of these, a rather scrubby individual with a broken tail, behaved

in an exemplary manner and took up with the widow at once. Less

than twenty-four hours after his release, I saw him sitting on the

branch of a dead oak, energetically waggling his one tail-feather and

whistling to his bride in a hole beneath him. But the other cock—

though a much finer bird—conducted himself in a foolish and “con¬

trary ” fashion. He would have nothing to do with the spinster,

and after a few days he wandered off and was caught and returned

to me in a starving condition. I let him out again, and again he

strayed, so I gave him up as a bad job and cut his wing when I had

managed to get him back. In April, further ill-luck arrived ; the

broken-tailed cock disappeared, and not long afterwards the odd hen

was picked up dead of chill. It is curious how birds, which have

spent the whole winter out of doors and are apparently in the pink

of condition and as hard as nails, will sometimes catch cold and die

during a spell of comparatively mild weather in spring, even though

they are not moulting. But better things were in store ; the best

pair of Mealies had for some time been visiting a tree about a mile

away from the garden, the cock was feeding the hen and every day

we expected to see him appear alone. It often happens, however, that

parrakeets, after fussing round a hole for weeks, will tire of it at the

last moment and go and settle down quickly in quite a different

place. The Mealies were an illustration of this, for they suddenly

decided that there was no place like home, and almost before we

realized that they had deserted their favourite haunt we found that

the hen was sitting in a hollow oak close to the lodge gates; the

very same tree in fact in which the Bauer and Yellow-napes had



