210 
Nesting Notes, Etc. 
The Blue Bud,q"erit;"ars and K'uv^ Parrakeets showed no 
inclination to nest, neither have the Black Cockatoos this 
season. The cocks of the two first have unfortunately died of 
chills caught during the moult. 
The lorikeets have laid several times at all periods of the 
year; if they had been Paradise or Turquoisine Parrakeets they 
would long ago have driven me mad, but as I do not very much 
care whether they rear young or not, I am merely resigned at 
their vagaries. At first they used to break their eggs at different 
stages of incubation (either by having bouts of Ju-jitzu on the 
top of them, or by opening them to look at and taste their 
contents). This spring they left them till they were about to 
hatch before chewing them up, and their final effort has been to 
hatch two chicks, the first of which they killed when a day old 
and the second wlien nearly half-grown. 
A pair of Peach-faced Lovebirds, which last year reared 
two young birds in a large cage, had their first lot of eggs with 
voung dead in the shell. The second clutch hatched, but the 
hen killed all the yoimg by biting the ends of their wings and 
feet. I do not tliink she really meant to hurt them, as she 
brootled and fed them, but was probably prompted by a morbid 
instinct, the result of loo close conlinement : she always used 
to pluck her mate's feathers to line the nest, no matter how 
much material we gave her. 
1 have had l)ad luck with my Hooded Parrakeets this 
year. The changeable weather in July caught them \v the 
iriddle of the moult, and 1 lost two out of three hens from 
inflannnation of the lungs. ( )ne had laid several times and 
the other was a young bird I had bred last autumn. I had 
another cock and hen ill, because, on being moved to a new 
aviary, they insisted on roosting, clmging to the open wire- 
netting in all weathers: fortunately they have recovered and are 
showing signs of wishing to nest, but I fear they will be too 
late, since I dare not let the hen lay when the nights begin to get 
chilly, as the species is very subject to egg-binding. 
The Queen Alexandras, as I have already said, I had 
small hopes of, as the hen came to me with the reputation of 
