The Frigate-bird post of the Pacific.



283



inquisitive, and well supported the dictum of those ornithologists who

place the Paradise Birds between the Crows and the Starlings. In

psychical as in physical characters the bird seemed midway between

the two ; in diet—oranges, figs, dates, meal-worms — he inclined to

the Starling’s side ; one wonders if, like a Starling, a Bird of Paradise

could be taught to talk.


Colours of bare areas during life: eye, bright red; lores, dull

leaden ; legs, pale red ; feet, very pale flesh colour; claws, greyish ;

inside of mouth and dorsum of tongue bright emerald green—

perhaps the most amazing tint of all.



UV/EAN PARRAKEETS.


A member’s correspondent, writing on Uvsean Parrakeets, says :

I cannot allow that hemp destroys their digestive organs ; surely

seed of any sort would not harm the digestive organs of hard-billed

Parrots; a too liberal supply of hemp or sunflower may over¬

fatten them, and thus prove fatal. While with me they had daily

a liberal supply of canary seed and a little hemp, also whole maize

and fruit, green food, etc. ; but before I got them they had been fed

entirely on maize. There is an abundance of wild fruits all the year

round in New Caledonia, so I conclude they need a liberal daily

supply of it and green food, which I always gave them.



THE FRIGATE-BIRD POST OF THE

PACIFIC.


By E. Hopkinson, M.B., D.S.O.


In a note to a paper by Bowdler Sharpe on a few birds from

the Ellice Islands [‘ Proceedings of the Zoological Society,’ 1878,

p. 274], the Rev. S. J. Whitmee, a missionary in the Pacific, writes

on one of the very last birds one would expect to hear of in captivity

as follows :


“ The Frigate-bird ... is domesticated by the natives

(of the Ellice Islands), and when I was there in 1870 I saw



