Correspondence, Notes, etc. 141



the habit is once acquired, I believe it is practically incurable unless the

bird can be turned loose in a large open-air aviary.


I think it probable that the varied interests of aviarv-life would

occupy the thoughts of the bird with something more sensible than per¬

petually denuding itself; and the comfort of clothing would be more

appreciated in the open air, than in the warmth of a dwelling-room or a

conservatory.


Feather - plucking results from two causes — incorrect feeding, or

insect-pests: both produce irritation of the skin, to alleviate which the

bird tears out its feathers.


The most certain means to adopt to induce a parrot to pluck itself is,

to give it any kind of animal food. Bird-lovers frequently imagine,

because parrots can be taught to talk, that they may be fed like human-

beings; so they give them milk, butter, cheese, eggs, chicken-bones, fish,

flesh, and fowl.


Another form of food which generally produces vomiting and laxity

in parrots (excepting Lories, Lorikeets, and other honey-feeding parrakeets)

is sop: this frequently results in skin - irritation and feather-plucking.

When breeding, however, it is admitted that soft food, such as bread

scalded with hot water and then pressed as dry as possible, assists these

birds in rearing their young.


A third error in feeding is, to supply advertized mixtures of strange

seeds to all kinds of parrots indiscriminately. Those who know anything

about these birds are well aware that each group requires its own proper

mixture; that to give the same seeds to a Budgerigar, a Lory, a Broadtail,

a Grey Parrot, or a Macaw, is to invite both disease and death.


In “ parrot mixtures ” the most prominent seeds are pumpkin, melon

or vegetable marrow (which can contain very little nutriment), hard maize,

the germ or bud of the coming plant being the principal part which is

eaten; prairie-grass, sometimes sold under the name of “sorghum” though

it in no way resembles millet; and sometimes sunflower seed. The idea of

the men who make up those strange combinations seems to be that any

large seeds will answer for parrot-food. Feather-plucking is frequently the

result of using these unnatural mixtures.


Insect-pests frequently result from the regular use of covers, to draw

over the cages at night: it is to the use of these that I have to attribute the

unsightliness of my own Grey Parrot, so that I speak from bitter

experience.


I think it possible that, if when a parrot first begins to pluck itself, a

little fluid magnesia is stirred into its drinking-water occasionally, and its

diet is strictly attended to ; the irritation may pass off before the habit of

plucking out its feathers has been formed; and thus it may be cured. I

have heard of such cases.



A. G. Butter.



