On Sir Charles Lawes- Wittewronge's Black Cockatoos. 135


a similar shell hung empty close by. The entrance hole was quite small,

and when five birds were in it seemed impossible for the others to find

room ; but though it generally took them quite a quarter of an hour to get

settled all were safely stowed away at last. I cannot think that any of them

could have found room to move leg or wing all night.


It seemed to me that separating the cocks and hens during the

winter, and giving them rather small sleeping boxes was the best way of

preventing that bad habit to which Bengalese seem specially prone, viz.,

sitting in the nest box for a day or two at a time, with or without an egg as

excuse. Birds that start the season with this failing never seem to lay a

full clutch of eggs, or to sit steadily.


Another difficulty with Bengalese is to persuade them to eat soft food

of any kind. I like all my birds to eat soft food occasionally, it is such a

help in case of illness, and young Bengalese are all the better for it when

first hatched. My birds seemed to feed their young ones on it almost

entirely during the first week of their lives, aud then they gradually

decreased it in favour of white millet.


Bengalese make capital parents, and it is very seldom that a nestling

dies. Four seems to be the usual number in the nest, though I have had as

many as six. When newly hatched the young Bengalese is the tiniest little

thing imaginable—a little pink moving morsel; it lies on its back with head

and legs feebly waving, and it seems marvellous that its parents can manage

to feed such a wee mite.


By putting together birds of different colours I have had chocolate

aud white, fawn aud white, and pure white young ones in the same nest.


These notes have spun themselves out to such a length that I can

only allude to the quaint little song and dance of the Bengalese, which are

not the least of its attractions as a cage-bird.


Emily Brampton.



SIR CHARLES LAWES-WITTEWRONGE’S BLACK

COCKATOOS.


In my account of the foreign birds at the Crystal Palace Bird Show

(page 69), I mentioned the Banksian Cockatoo being a decided rarity,

seldom seen at bird-shows. Soon after the appearance of these notes,

however, I received a note from Mr. Hamlyn, the well-known dealer in live

animals, informing me that a client of his at Chelsea had several of these

birds flying loose in a large aviary and suggesting that I should go and see

them, which through the courtesy of their owner, Sir Charles Eawes-

Wittewronge, I have since had the pleasure of doing.


A large space outside Sir Charles’ studio is wired over with strong



