30 QUAKER PABBAKEET. 



lengths strongly matted together; and then roofed over with longer 

 branches very firmly interlaced. In the first instance a doorway was 

 left in the side of the nest facing north, but the birds finding, 

 apparently, that this exposed them too much to the weather, deliberately 

 cut another doorway facing west, and then filled up the former 

 opening; closing it completely with an extra thickness of twigs. 



They made use of no softer material for lining their abode, in which, 

 although no eggs have been laid, both male and female pass the night 

 and a great part of the day, but made the floor of the nest of small 

 twigs; reserving the larger for the sides and roof. 



Owing to the position in which the box was placed, the shape of 

 the nest is flat, instead of being round, as usually happens when the 

 birds are at full liberty; but to render it more secure they have threaded 

 a large number of sticks through the wires of the aviary, close to 

 which the box happened to be placed. Before finally selecting this 

 situation, the female made several attempts to build in other places 

 but soon abandoned them; and after her nest was fairly under way, 

 made use of the materials she had already collected elsewhere to 

 complete it. 



It would be extremely curious and interesting if any one could find 

 out why these birds have so widely departed, in the matter of nest 

 building, from the habits of the race to which they belong; but that 

 is a point that will probably never be satisfactorily cleared up, so 

 that we must, perforce, remain contented with our ignorance. A cor- 

 respondent has suggested, that perhaps instead of having taken a new 

 departure, Monachus may be the only Parrot that has persisted in 

 the old custom of nidification, once common to all its congeners; but 

 this view we take to be extremely unlikely. Indeed it stands to reason, 

 we think, that a universal change of the habits of a race, with one 

 solitary exception; is less likely, far less likely, to have occurred, 

 than that one member of that race should, from whatever cause, have 

 worked out a new line of action for itself. Be that as it may, it is 

 little less curious than in captivity the habit should have been occa- 

 sionally departed from, as happened in the case of M. Rousse's birds; 

 "qui remjolissent leurs nids de tout ce qu'elles peuvent trouver," as he 

 repeats in another part of his book on "Aviculture." 



Mr. Sydney 0. Buxton, of Fox Warren, Cobham, Surrey, relates 

 in the Animal World for 1878, page 179, the history of a pair of 

 these birds that were in his possession at one time. "Five years ago 

 I brought back from South America, two small green paraquets, 

 which I had taken when young from their nests. These two little 

 birds became very tame and familiar; and it was a pretty sight to see 



