22 BLUE BONNET PABBAKEET. 



tribe in captivity, not excepting the Budgerigar. Introduced into an 

 exposed ont-door aviary last spring, immediately after importation, 

 without any attempt at acclimatisation, they have undergone hardships, 

 both as to exposure and food, under which even the Cardinal has 

 succumbed, and yet they never had an hour's sickness. They are 

 seen to the best advantage when seated on a lofty perch, with their 

 primrose underside, so curiously aproned with blood-red, exposed to 

 view; their elaborate bowings and antics are calculated to produce 

 shouts of merriment. They seem the mildest of the inmates of the 

 aviary, but they are really its most insiduous assassins. I have found 

 young birds with their pinions cruelly mutilated, although they were 

 apparently safe in small cages; young Budgerigars, valuable Bourke's 

 Parrakeets, Turquoisines, and others, dead or dying, with their wing 

 joints mutilated, or their heads smashed; and I never was able to trace 

 the assassins, until one day I saw my innocent looking pets, sidle up 

 to a delicate graceful Dove, seize him by the wing, and begin to 

 gnaw him savagely. They will live for months with smaller birds on 

 the most friendly terms, but in the end they will clear an aviary of 

 all weaker than themselves, although like true assassins, they never 

 attack one of their own size. It is only fair to say that these are only 

 imported birds, and that some I have bred myself have not developed 

 this murderous tendency. For hardiness, intelligence, grace, and most 

 amusing ways, commend me above all to the Blue Bonnet, but be 

 sure to keep him with birds who are his match in strength, or, better 

 still, in a small compartment by himself, when he will be a model of 

 good behaviour." 



Having no one to fight with, or to murder, he will be perfectly 

 inoffensive, no doubt; but as we have already remarked more than 

 once, birds vary in their dispositions, as Mr. Johnson himself admits, 

 and one pair of Blue Bonnets will be found to be as peaceable and 

 orderly, as another is cantankerous and objectionable. 



In size these birds are somewhat less than the Cockatiel, but of 

 more slender build. As Mr. Johnson remarks, they are very hardy, 

 and thrive exceedingly on a diet of oats, to which they are especially 

 partial, canary seed, millet, hemp, and boiled maize : they are very fond 

 of green food of all kinds, and especially of the bough of some tree, 

 such as elm or poplar, which they soon peck to pieces with every 

 manifestation of delight. 



Much of the mischief wrought in aviaries by one sort of bird, or 

 another, is due to overcrowding: better keep four birds comfortably, 

 than a dozen where they have not room to turn round without treading 

 on each other's heels. 



