50 PURPLE-CAPPED LORY. 



vest, grows mopy and dozy in the day-time, and if not yet really ill, 

 has every appearance of being so. 



The Purple-capped Lory is too valuable and too charming a bird to 

 be neglected thus; but many fanciers are afraid of a little trouble, and 

 rather than leave their beds half an hour in the morning earlier than 

 usual, pretend that they have not time, when really all that they want 

 is inclination, and thus the poor birds, who cannot help themselves, 

 are made to suffer. 



Any one who has watched and studied a handsome healthy Purple- 

 cap cannot have failed to have noticed what a consummate dandy, not 

 to say fop he is, and what care and attention he bestows upon his 

 toilet; every individual feather is carefully passed through his beak 

 many times a day; he delights in bathing, and if, by chance, a speck 

 of dirt happens to fall on his beautiful coat, the poor fellow's distress 

 is almost ludicrous to behold: he crains his head back so as almost 

 to touch the offending portion of " matter out of place" with his orange 

 beak, and then suddenly draws back, shaking his head with every 

 expression of disgust, then he shivers all over, rather than shakes him- 

 self, and if the speck falls off he squeals with pleasure, but should it 

 still adhere to his back, he jumps about the cage with every symptom 

 of deep concern, and, finally, on finding that nothing else will do, 

 knocks it off with the point of his bill, which he immediately cleans 

 against his perch, and then, generally, goes and has a bath. Think 

 then what one of these birds kept in a dirty cage must suffer. 



Of the Purple-cap the Hon. and Rev. F. G. Dutton writes, "I fed 

 these birds in the same manner as the Blue Mountains, and had that 

 best of all proofs that my food suited them, their plumage improved 

 so much. I bought them of M. Celle de Sprimont in Belgium, whose 

 gardener declared they were aviary-bred, and that they supplied the 

 old birds with some chopped meat when they were nesting." 



We think it is quite possible that this may have been the case, though 

 our correspondent goes on to say that he knows nothing of the truth 

 of what he was told. 



We believe that all the Lories are partially insectivorous, and failing 

 insects might eat a little meat, as many other birds are in the habit 

 of doing; that they bred as stated we also believe to be not only possible 

 but probable. 



