36 SWIFT PABBAKEET. 



however short the distance that separates them: this is peculiarly the 

 case in many of the island-groups of Polynesia, and those that are 

 contiguous to the great island-continent of Australia. 



It having been lately denied that the Hobart Town Swift was a 

 honey-eater, we may refer the reader to the late John Gould's account 

 of this Parrakeet in his magnificent work The Birds of Australia, 

 where he specially mentions having shot them in the vicinity of Hobart, 

 as the capital of Tasmania is now called, and seen clear honey, to the 

 extent of a dessert spoonful drop from their beaks when he held them 

 up by their feet: and we have been assured of the same fact by other 

 trustworthy informants, who had spent many years in the colony. 



Since writing the above we have read an account of the Swift by 

 M. Alfred Eousse, of Fontenay-le-Comte, who says (we translate): 

 "This pretty Parrakeet is as hardy as possible, and deserves to be 

 better known and more generally kept than it is. It bred with me 

 in 1882, the first instance, I believe, of its nesting in confinement. 

 I had had the birds in my possession since 1880. Incubation lasted 

 twenty-one days, and in thirty more the young left the nest. This 

 year again I have had a brood. The number of young to a nest (only 

 one a year) varies from three to five. The sex of the young birds 

 is at once apparent, as the red marks on the head of the males are 

 already well developed/' 



