68 BOOK PEPLBB. 



to feed itself. Secondly, birds in a cage very often suffer from ennui, 

 or from what our grandmothers used to call the " spleen;" and in 

 their enforced listlessness not unfrequently use their beaks upon them- 

 selves, and pluck out or disfigure their own feathers, until they look 

 more like veritable scarcecrows than familiar Parrots or Parrakeets. 

 Thirdly, woody fibre is apparently a necessity in the dietary of all the 

 Psittacidcej and though but little of it is actually eaten by them, it 

 serves some useful purpose in their economy, and without it a bird's 

 health will sooner or later suffer. 



The Rock Pepler is by no means a noisy bird; still it can and does 

 scream at times, particularly if it has nothing to do ; but its cries are 

 not unbearable, for, if a trifle shrill, they are not very loud, and are 

 chiefly uttered before rain. Which, by the bye, they enjoy immensely 

 when so situated that they can spread out their wings and tail to catch 

 the falling drops of a genial summer shower. In their wild state these 

 birds seldom bathe ; they have, in fact, no occasion, or need, to do so ; 

 they roll in the grass, wet in the morning with the heavy dews of 

 night; or they dash the drops from the boughs upon their backs, as 

 they flit to and fro among the forest trees. In the house, therefore, if 

 a bath is desirable, and the bird does not seem disposed to voluntarily 

 take one, it is a good plan to syringe it gently with a garden squirt, 

 or, better still, to place the cage out in the garden when it rains. 



A correspondent of The Bazaar newspaper recently wrote as follows 

 respecting the Eock Pepler Parrakeets :— ff Regarding them as a most 

 charming variety, I have kept, or rather tried to keep, several. I 

 found them extremely delicate, quite on a par with the Grey Parrot. 

 I managed to get one through the moult, and I exhibited him at 

 Canterbury ; but he, like the rest, died of atrophy. A friend of mine, 

 before buying, asked my opinion. Some few months after, I met him. 

 He said, 'I found you were right about the Rock Peplers; I bought 

 a pair, but they soon died/ I saw some in London last week (middle 

 of January, 1887); none of them, to my mind, looked like 'livers/" 



If possible these birds should be obtained quite young; for if 

 captured when adult, or even after they have flown a few weeks it is 

 very difficult to accustom them to captivity ; they sulk and pine, like the 

 King Parrots, and soon die, poor things ! literally of a broken heart. 

 But when reared from the nest they are quite as enduring as the 

 generality of Australian Parrakeets, and more so than some; the 

 Pileated, for instance, and Aprosmictus erythropterus. 



Another correspondent of the same paper records his experience of 

 the Rock Pepler Parrakeet as follows : — 



"I found them very delicate — and I know such has been the 



