GOLDEN-CROWNED PARRAKEET. 19 



very much at home; but scarcely was our back turned when we heard 

 a terrible commotion, and, to our consternation, beheld our new acqui- 

 sition in the mouth of our big black tom-cat. Naturally we thought 

 the poor stranger's doom was sealed; and to seize the cat, choke him 

 till he dropped the Parrakeet, and prepare to bind up the wounds of 

 the latter, if indeed he were yet alive, was the work of but a few 

 seconds, when to our surprise the liberated Auriceps flew off as if 

 nothing had been the matter, and darted round and round the room 

 in evident enjoyment of his recovered liberty: nor was it without 

 some difficulty that he was eventually recaptured. 



When at length we had secured our truant, we found the poor 

 fellow to be so seriously wounded on the back, between the wings, 

 that we gave him up for lost; we put him in a small cage, however, 

 he had walked out between the bars of the large one, as one might 

 do through an ordinary door-way, and in a few days Richard was 

 himself again, whereupon we turned him into a large aviary out of 

 doors in company with a mixed collection of foreign birds, where he 

 soon made himself at home. 



We have kept a number of different kinds of Parrots and Parrakeets 

 in our time, and the subject of the present notice stands almost as 

 high as any of them in our estimation. 



Since writing the above, we have been obliged to remove our 

 favourite in-doors: about the beginning of October he began to moult, 

 and appeared to feel the sharp weather that soon afterwards set in 

 so keenly, that we thought it would be decidedly cruel to subject him 

 to it any longer, but another change of temperature taking place, we 

 decided to leave him where he was, for at least a few days longer. 

 One morning, however, when we entered the aviary to feed the birds, 

 Auriceps was nowhere to- be seen! 



High and low, in every box and husk we looked for him, in vain: 

 he was gone, and the mysterious part of the matter was that we could 

 see no possible way by which he could have made his escape. He 

 had not been carried off by a marauding rat, or dragged through the 

 wires by a prowling cat, for, in either case, some of his feathers would 

 certainly have been lying about. What could have become of him? 



In one corner of the aviary, on the ground, stood an old cage, we 

 lifted it up and crouching under it, in a burrow which he had evidently 

 excavated for himself in the soft earth, lay Auriceps, perdu! But the 

 cold ground had chilled him, he was cramped and unable to fly: we 

 thought he had taken his death, as the saying is, and removed him 

 at once indoors; but in a few days he was himself again; so after 

 keeping him for a while in an old canary-breeding cage, we turned 



