Some Expcrioiees of Cocl'atoos. 
180 
clironic peritouitiri as the result of an old internal injury. 
Some time later I exchanged the .second cock for a new 
hen, but had the misfortune to lose her from an accident 
within a few rlays of lier arrival. So the first cock remains 
a lonely l)achelor and is. I fear, likely to continue to lead 
a solitary existence, as Gang-f^angs })ecome more and more 
difTicull to get. 
Our early failures with Ro.seates I have already 
referred to. but later experiment.-; with this beautiful, though 
common, liii'd were attended with a temporary degree of 
success. 
About foui-feen years ago we were given a hen of 
this species, which had been captured in Covent Garden 
Market. At first she was very wild and savage, but much 
petting and attention fi'om one of the servants, who happened 
to be fond of birds, eventually made her charmingly tame 
and docile witli those she knew. In the summer time she was 
allowed her liberty with a cut wing in a gra.ss qua'drangle- 
which lie- in the centre of the house, and on the few occasions 
when she grew sufficient flight feathers to enable her to use 
her wing.^, she was recovered without much dilflculty. After 
^A',* had had hei- some years I decided to get he - a companion 
and not at tlie time knowing the .sexual difference in the 
colour of the irides (red or hazel in the hen, nearly black in 
the cock) I unfortunately o])tained a second female. The 
two birds were (juite friendly towards each other, but not 
affectionate and the newcomer quickly became as tame as 
her companion, and would allow most people to handle her. 
During the winter the old hen died and when the .survivor 
wa.s turned into the quadrangle- the following spring I Iwught 
a cock to go with her. The new Idrd was shy and in rather 
rough plumage, l)ut a few weeks in the open improved him 
wondei-fully, and the colour of his bi'east deepened by at 
least two shades. "In the spring a fuller crimson" may 
not, a.s stated by the poet, " come upon the Robin's breast," 
but it certainly does upon the Cockatoo's when you kee]) 
him at liberty, and altiiough at one time a firm disbeliever 
in the theory of the repigmentation of birds' plumage, I 
must confess that my observations on Roseates have rather 
shaken me in my earlier convictions on "this point. 
Towards the end of May the pair began "to «show 
