72 SUN PABBAKEET. 



it fed on, until at last the inevitable result ensued, and the poor 

 creature fell a victim to its own foolish practice. 



Here is a grand opportunity for a little moralising, but we shall not 

 avail ourselves of it. The habit of self-mutilation often springs, we 

 believe, from idleness, want of occupation; but once acquired, though 

 opportunities of recreation and employment are afforded, they will not 

 be made use of, and the unnatural vice will increase and grow. So- 

 ciety is incapable, except in rare cases, of effecting a cure, and even 

 the usually engrossing passion of sexual attachment fails in curative 

 power, with a confirmed feather-eater. 



This bird has been frequently confounded with allied species; the 

 Golden-headed Oonure (Conurus auricapillus), for instance, as well as 

 with Jendaya, and even aureus; although there is actually no great 

 resemblance between any two of them. 



The Sun Parrakeet, or Yellow Oonure, was first acquired by the 

 Zoological Society of London in 1862. Another specimen was obtained 

 eleven years later, and yet survives in the Parrot House, where several 

 more specimens have at different times been added to a collection that 

 is perhaps the richest in the world, with regard not only to species 

 but to the actual number of Parrots, Parrakeets, and Cockatoos now in 

 the possession of the Society. 



The Yellow Oonure was known to Bechstein, who thus describes it: 

 "The whole length of this bird (Der gelbe Sittich) is eleven inches and 

 a half; the tail is wedge-shaped, and the folded wings cover one-third 

 of it. The beak and feet are green (!). The throat, the naked mem- 

 branes of the beak, and the circle of the eyes, are light grey; the 

 iris is yellow. The general colour of the body is orange, with olive 

 spots on the back and wing coverts. 



"This Parrot comes from Angola, and easily learns to speak. The 

 food and treatment must be the same as the preceding." That is to 

 say: "nuts, and bread soaked in boiled milk", a dietary from which 

 we must withhold our assent. 



The food we have found most suitable is canary seed, with maize, 

 oats, sunflower seeds, and now and then a little hemp. Water must 

 be given for drinking and bathing, and a supply of gravel is as indis- 

 pensable as a log of soft wood. The former assists digestion, and the 

 latter affords much needed help against the tedium of captivity within 

 the bars of a narrow cage. 



We have not tried this Oonure out of doors for two reasons, the 

 first of which is that, like the rest of its congeners, it is extremely 

 spiteful with other Parrakeets, and especially so with other birds; and 

 secondly, because it is too expensive to expose to any risk of dying 



