xiv INTR OB UG TION. 



a tin collar round the bird's neck, anointing the breast with oil, strewing 

 the bottom of the cage with feathers, have answered in some cases, and 

 failed in others. So that the owner of a feather-eater would do well to give 

 all the above plans a trial, so that if one did not succeed another might. 

 Shower-baths, too, have been suggested, but are not generally successful; 

 parasites must of course be looked for, and guarded against, and if there 

 is any skin irritation, a cooling diet, consisting largely of green food, might 

 be tried: but some cases defy every attempt to cure them, and all are 

 more or less troublesome, requiring a great deal of patience and perseverance 

 if any good is to result from the adoption of remedial measures. Some 

 months since we bought a Green Parrot that had plucked all the feathers 

 off its breast, and was, generally, in very poor condition; we turned it out 

 into a garden aviary well supplied with logs, and the bird is now in perfect 

 plumage, and as sleek and handsome as possible. 



If it is desired to breed Parrots, they should be placed in as roomy a 

 cage or aviary as practicable, unless so tame that they can be permitted to 

 have the range of the house; their abode must be fitted up with hollow 

 logs of suitable size, suspended high up against the wall, to keep them 

 out of reach of mice, or a small barrel, with half a cocoa-nut husk firmly 

 cemented to the bottom, may be placed at their disposal, and will often 

 be taken possession of in preference to a hollow log. Boxes with a flat 

 bottom surface are objectionable, on account of the eggs rolling about, and 

 running the risk of taking cold, for few members of the Parrot family make 

 any nest, properly so called, but deposit their eggs on the bare wood of 

 their abode. 



• W. T. G. 



