Parrots. 
135 
winy. Unfortunately the young of both species resemble their 
mothers, and the birds I purchased as hens turned out to hz 
young males, so I never had a chance of breeding them. They 
are not noisy, and as far as my experience goes, quite harmless 
in an aviary of other birds. 
The African Ring-neck Parrakeet (F. docilis) differs 
only from its Indian cousin in the colour of its beak, which is 
much darker. It has nested with me but without result. Both 
the birds I had proved delicate, and had to be brought indoors 
in the winter. 
The Senegal Parrot ( Fucoccphalns scucgalis) is an- 
other desirable aviary bird, and it is of course a popular cage 
bird also. Although very different in colour, it is related to the 
Grey Parrot, and comes from the same district. It is a very 
lovely bird in its green, orange and brown dress, and it is more- 
over, not very difificult to tame. The one drawback to keeping 
them, from an aviculturist point of view, is the difficulty in 
sexing them. I have had two so called pairs, and I believe that 
all of them were hens. At any rate, the cock of the first pair laid 
eggs and sat on them, and both birds in the second pair were 
seen to make love to an odd cock Rosella, asking him to feed 
them, etc. According to Dr. Butler and Dr. Greene the hen 
differs from the cock in having a paler coloured head and no 
orange on the under parts. All the four birds just mentioned, 
tw'o of which were known to have laid eggs had normal coloured 
heads and rich orange breasts. Later on, when I had parted 
with these birds, I received another from one of our lady mem- 
bers, which I was assured was a hen. Poor " Bridget," she 
met with a sad end. being so badly mauled by a pair of small 
Conures. with whom she had lived peaceftdly for months, tnat 
I had to kill her. On dissection she proved to be a male. I may 
say that she in no way differed in plumage from the other four 
birds. 
CONURES. 
The next to be noted are the Conures, a very numerous 
family, many of which have not yet been bred in captivity. 
The Blue-crowxed Conure (Comtrns haotiorrlioHs) is 
one of the largest of these. They are rarely imported and appar- 
