32 
Aviary Notes for igij. 
sionally peep out. Wlienever he had misbehaved himself by 
giving too hard a nip he would say " Naughty Joey " quite 
distinctly. 
Alas ! one day he was forgotten for an hour or two in 
the garden, where he often spent the afternoon, and although 
he was searched for high and low no answering cry came when 
he was called, and we have never seen a trace of him since. 
No doubt a wandering cat carried him off. 
N.B. There must be no cats here this year. 
Of four Black-cheeked Lovebirds ( A gapornis nigrigcii- 
is ) two have always been invisible, apparently spending their 
time in a nest box on eggs; innumerable eggs have been laid, 
but so far all have been clear, and T am not certain that I even 
have one true pair. 
The Swatxson's Lorikeets (TricJioglossus }wvac-hoUau- 
diac) above referred to came to me in November, 1916, and 
spent the winter in a cage indoors. Here they were the greatest 
source of amusement to me by reason of their very unbird-like 
Ijehaviour; when in a playful mood they remind one very much 
of a couple of pu])pies romping; first they would descend to the 
cage bottom and roll about, one on the top of the other, biting 
each others' legs, wing-butts and bills — the male frequently 
dragging the hen about, and all in perfect good humour; then 
one would hang suspended head down from a perch and the 
other, with feet and beak, would climb up and down him and 
the biting process would be repeated. Even after a long bout 
of these frolics not a single feather of the wonderfully perfect 
plumage would be ruffled. The nest box again was a very fav- 
ourite place for these scuffles, one of which was the cause, I 
think, of the breaking of two eggs laid last spring. 
The birds have since then moulted completely I believe, 
but never at any moment has the plumage been in anything but 
perfect condition, so the process must be very gradual. In 
March T turned them out with a few other Parrakeets, and al- 
though their outward behaviour was good enough I suspect 
them of sampling the eggs of smaller and weaker birds; anyhow 
on su.spicion T put them in a small aviary to themselves where 
they spent the spring, summer and autimm, sleeping at night 
