PARRAKEETS AND THEIR WAYS. 
265 
of the green trees. It was then difficult to discover them ; but, just 
before taking to the wing, they congregated on the leafless boughs or 
on the branches which inclined towards the surface of the water. 
Swift the flight of these parrakeets as that of the falcon or the 
swallow ! They walk on the ground with tolerable ease, and climb not 
unskilfully. When flying, they make the welkin ring with their 
piercing cries. When at rest, they keep up a lively babble among 
themselves : it cannot be called a song, for the different voices mingle 
in a discordant medley which is perfectly indescribable. Even during 
their breeding-season these sociable birds live together in numerous 
communities, though each couple preserve their domestic independence. 
They make their nests in the hollows and gaps of the gum-trees. The 
female lays from four to six white round eggs in the month of Decem- 
ber, and in two or three weeks the young ones are fully clothed and 
capable of self-suppoi't. Then they attach themselves to the society of 
their elder congeners; and all sally forth together, a happy family, 
which seems seldom disturbed by intestine dissensions. 
STRUTHIOUS BIRDS. 
Australia is the land of oddities ; and it is natural, therefore, that 
it should have its representative of the Struthionidse, or short-winged 
birds, like the rhea of America and the ostrich of Africa. 
The earliest notice of the emeu occurs in Captain Philip's narrative 
of his voyage to Botany Bay, published in 1787. He is there named 
the New Holland cassowary, and he is figured by Lieutenant Watts. 
Afterwards he was described by Peron ; and still more lately by 
Bennett, who studied his habits carefully, and gave him the name of 
emeu — a name formerly applied by the early Portuguese navigators 
to a great bird of Malacca. 
The emeu forms a transition type between the ostrich and rhea on 
the one hand, and the cassowary on the other. He has the " air," the 
bearing of the ostrich, but is more compact in figure, has a shorter 
neck, and less formidable legs. H!is wings are exceedingly small, and 
are scarcely distinguishable when folded close in to the body. Like 
Canning's knife-grinder, he has no " tail," but the body is covered with 
