142 PENNANT'S PABBAKEET. 



before one actually had time to realize the fact of their passage before 

 one's face. 



Clothed in a robe of the most brilliant scarlet, the Pennant has a 

 patch of bluish grey just under his white beak, the front of the wings 

 and the small wing coverts are of the same colour, the primaries are 

 black, edged outwardly with bluish grey, and the back of the neck, 

 the back, the secondaries, and large wing coverts are black, broadly 

 edged with scarlet, while the long tail is very dark bluish grey, or 

 rather greyish blue; the feet and legs dark slate grey, and the nails 

 black; the eye is dark hazel brown, and is surrounded by a narrow 

 bare line of grey, lightly dotted with black spots. 



In size the Pennant is about a third larger than the Oockatiel, but 

 it is not nearly as elegantly shaped a bird as the latter, and not at 

 all deserving of the epithet bestowed upon it by Kuhl and other writers, 

 which, however, has now been definitively adjudged to another species 

 more worthy of being so designated. 



The young resemble their parents, but their colours are duller, and 

 they do not assume the adult plumage until they are at least a year 

 old: with the few exceptions mentioned elsewhere, all the Parrot race 

 make their nests in hollow trees, or rather in the hollow boughs of 

 trees, and the Pennant follows, in this respect, the custom of the vast 

 majority of his relations. Although gregarious during the winter and 

 autumn, these birds separate into pairs during the breeding-season, 

 which extends from September to January; during which period two 

 or three broods, of from four to six young ones each, are produced, 

 and the offspring remain with their parents, even while the latter are 

 breeding again, until the following spring, when they set up house- 

 keeping on their own account. Their nests are generally made, as 

 far as scraping a hole in a rotten bough can be termed making a nest, 

 in the branches of the peppermint and stringy-bark trees that are seldom 

 found wanting, in an Australian forest, and which particularly abound 

 in the vicinity of Mount Cole, Mount Korong, and other parts of the 

 colony of Victoria. 



These birds are very fond of brackish water, and frequent such 

 creeks and water-holes as are moderately salt, both night and morning- 

 in great numbers. 



Owing to the difficulty of securing a pair, these grand birds are 

 not so frequently bred in our aviaries as, doubtless, they otherwise 

 would be, for they are docile and hardy, and readily accommodate 

 themselves to their altered circumstances, yet are always impatient of 

 interference at the hands of their owners, who must, as much as possible, 

 leave them to themselves if they are wished to breed. 



