332



The Marquis of Tavistock,



the catbirds that have drunk from the bottles on several occasions,

although they have found it an inconvenient performance. The same

may be true of a pair of chickadees that drank as long as they re¬

mained with us. They clung to the stiff leaves of the tiger lily and

found no difficulty in the way of drinking. Only one humming bird

learned to perch on this flower and drink from it while standing.

From the earlier experiments it was suspected that the humming

birds found the sirup through some sense, rather than stumbling' upon

it by chance or through imitation, but several things disprove such

a supposition. The principal one is that migrants passing through

the yard in the spring, but more especially in the fall, fail to find the

sirup. That these migrants can be recognized as such by their

behaviour will be shown further on.


The 25 or more visits paid to bottles No. 5 and No. 6 before

they were filled for the first time show that the birds recognized them

as receptacles for their food, though they were new bottles occupying

new locations. To make sure that the birds should not be attracted

to them by seeing me stake the pickets out, this work was done after

dark. The first summer that No. 6 was out, frequent pretenses of

filling it were made in sight of the birds, but no response followed.

The next summer no such pretenses were made, yet a humming bird

w T as seen to search this unfilled bottle on May 12 and 31, twice on

June 1, on July 21 and 26, on August 4, 7, 12, 23, and 26.


(To be Continued).



RED ROSELLAS AT LIBERTY.


By The Marquis of Tavistock.


The red rosella shares with the peacock the ill fortune of being

a surprisingly beautiful bird, whose merits are apt to be ignored

simply because he is so common. If rosellas were as scarce in

England as Queen Alexandra parrakeets, and peacocks as seldom

seen as Mikado pheasants, what prices would be given for them

and what eulogies would be written by the few who were fortunate

enough to be their possessors !


Parrot-keeping has been a comparatively recent hobby of

mine, and six years ago I do not think I could have named a single



