348 All Greoi Parral-cets and Cactus Coniires. 
flifjlit. absolutely inaeeessihlp, so that exact details were 
quite an impo >.sibility. By careful observation I am 
enabled to fix the date of nesting on or neai- the 1st of June. 
There were four eg-gs, which all proved to be fei'tile; I lie 
colour waT white, and in sliape something between an oval 
and a round, and in size about th it of a Thnish's, only rounder. 
The period of incubation is about 2<i days, but the hen hardly 
ever left the nest, the cock bird ministering to her wants, 
so much so that I feared she must have died. It was not 
un'til well into July that the hen was seen at all often and then 
only for brief intervals. The young when first hatched are the 
usual naked grotesque lumps of ugliness, with an enormous 
hooked gape and I strongly suspect that the reason the hen 
never comes off is that she daren't, lest she should catch a 
glimpse of them on her return. Farrakeets develop very 
slowly and it is usually six weeks before they leave the 
nest. But when one considers their Hawk -like appearance 
and the spitefulness of other Parrakeets one can see how 
necessary it is they should be fully equipped for the battle 
of life. The birds appear to open their eyes at about the 
14th day, but as the hen incubates as soon as tlie first egg is 
laid, these and other points are difficult to dogmatise on. The 
nestling plumage is pure green and there is no down such 
as one gets in Egrets or Owlets. No attempt is made at 
sanitarj- cleanliness, but the habitation does not seem to suffer 
in consequence. Most Parrakeets seem to prefer a roomy 
barrel and this may be the reason. From August 1st to lP)th, 
I never saw nor heard anything of my All-Greens, and I feai'ed 
for the worst. Possibly the war so occupied my aftention 
as to cause me to forget them, but on August 14th one young 
All-Green left the nest. It was the image of its parents, but 
with a dark brown beak instead of being light coloured. 
The general shape of the young is rounder and less trim, and 
of course the feet and legs pinker in colour. The tail is 
short and almost square, like that of a Tovi, but in six weeks' 
time all differences disappeai", and it is impossible to- tell the 
young from the old, except that the old are more noisy. 
A second young bird appeared on the 15th, a third on 
the 17th, and a fourth on the I'Jth. All four lived, and are 
doing- well. At first they slept out in a bare oak sapling,. 
