4 ROSE-HILL PARRAKEET. 



of the fancy sorts of the former bird, command a much higher price, 

 and we wonder that Parrots are not more frequently kept on a large 

 scale than they are, for they are excellent eating, and their feathers 

 in much request for ladies' hats and bonnets. 



A strong, well-built aviary, plenty of hollow logs, that is all that 

 is needed for a Perrucherie: with the exception of the Cockatiels, 

 however, which we have never found to interfere with their fellow- 

 captives, most of the Parrots would require an aviary to themselves, 

 but as the greater number of species are gregarious, several pairs of 

 the same kind may, usually, be kept together, and, providing there 

 is plenty of nesting accommodation about, will not interfere with each 

 other's arrangements : many species, indeed, breeding better in company, 

 than when one pair only is kept. 



It is needless to reiterate that a sufficiency of nesting accommodation 

 must be provided, or adieu to peace, and to all hope of increase in 

 the Perrucherie: but when this has been attended to the birds will 

 soon settle quietly down, and rarely meddle with one another, for 

 Parrots, on the whole, are sociable birds, and get on better in com- 

 pany than when kept in solitary confinement in a cage; though some 

 misanthropic individuals seem by their conduct to contradict point 

 blank this assertion: nevertheless that there are exceptions to every 

 rule is well known, establishing rather than overturning it: and that 

 this is the case with Parrots, the experience of every aviarist who has 

 kept them in any numbers will, we think, confirm. 



When forming a collection of Parrots in an aviary, it will be well 

 to group together the species that more nearly approach each other in 

 size and habits: thus we would not recommend placing Sulphur-crested 

 Cockatoos in the same enclosure with any of the Love-birds, although 

 some species are usually so amiable and accommodating, the Cockatiel 

 for instance, that they will get on in any company, minding their own 

 business with praiseworthy assiduity, without ever inquiring what their 

 neighbours are doing, what they are going to have for dinner, who 

 their relations are, or what means they have for getting on in life, as 

 so frequently happens with the superior creature man. 



Needless to plant trees or shrubs in an aviary of Parrots, but hollow 

 logs, trees even, will be a great boon to the inhabitants, affording 

 them not only snug retreats in which to deposit their eggs, and hatch 

 and bring up their young, but also an infinite fund of amusement, not 

 to say delight, and exercise to boot, for nearly all the Parrots are 

 born "whittlers", and if they have not a handy log "convenient", as 

 an Irishman would say, on which to exercise their powerful mandibles, 

 they will find some other and more objectionable mode of whiling away 



