18 BARNARD'S PARRAKEET. 



This Parrakeet is believed to feed, at least partially, on white ants 

 but appears nevertheless to do very well indeed without any such 

 delicacies in captivity; though possibly the fact that it has not yet 

 nested in confinement, may be owing to the insufficiently stimulating 

 nature of its enforced seed diet, and the connoisseur who is desirous of 

 having aviary-bred Barnards in his collection would do well to try the 

 effect of adding daily a few meal-worms, or a small handful of scoured 

 gentles, or their pupae, to the bill of fare. 



In the Colonies this handsome bird is known by the name of the 

 Bulla Bulla Parrakeet; why, it would be difficult to say, for it has 

 little of the melodious vocalization and imitative powers of the Lyre 

 Bird (Menura superba), to which the natives of Australia have allotted 

 the same designation. 



There are few sights prettier than a large aviary well supplied with 

 branches and a turfed floor and inhabited by a collection of Australian 

 Broadtails, of which there are many species, nearly all of which are 

 about the same size; the exceptions being the Pennant, Adelaide, 

 Rosella, and Stanley. The two first are considerably larger than the 

 species under consideration, while the Rosella, and especially the Stanley 

 are smaller; the latter, indeed, not being much bigger than the Elegant 

 Grass Parrakeet. 



All the Broadtails get on very well together, and in fact some of 

 the so-called species are only local varieties of each other; thus the 

 Pennant and Adelaide Broadtails are very closely connected, and the 

 same may be said of the Rosella and the Palliceps, commonly called 

 the Mealy Rosella; while, notwithstanding the great difference in size, 

 we believe Stanley's Parrakeet to be a very near relation indeed of 

 Platycercus eximius, the Rosella, or Rosehill Parrakeet. 



Be that as it may, there is no doubt that Eximius and Palliceps 

 have paired together in captivity, and produced fertile young ones that 

 have had others equally capable of reproduction, and combining in 

 their own persons the colours and markings of their parents, which 

 they transmitted unchanged to their own progeny; thus, in our opinion 

 at all events, establishing beyond possibility of dispute the generic 

 identity of the two varieties. 



Whether it would be possible to perpetuate this new variety, or 

 whether, as in the case of the Golden and Amherst Pheasants; the 

 progeny, of successive generations would revert to one or other of the 

 progenitorial types, and not continue the mixture of the two species, 

 remains to be proved ; but analogy would lead one to suppose that the 

 former supposition would be the more likely of the two to be correct; 

 unity and not confusion, being without question, the order of the day 



