58 
Bessie Comes of Age. 
he was selling off his Foreign Birds. On receiving a price- 
list from the vendor I spent much time in contemplating the 
names of some that fascinated me — for I did not then possess 
a book on parrots. After much hesitation I decided to invest 
£3 in a Meyer's Parrot, which was described as " very rare." 
This bird, I rejoice to say, has not in any way belied her descrip- 
tion, for she has only once been beaten at the Crystal Palace 
since she obtained premier honours there at the Jubilee Show 
in 1909. At every show from then till 1914 she was placed 
first in the Parrot Class except on one occasion when she had 
to lower her colours to Mr. Ezra's Hawk-headed Parrot, which 
is, I believe — if it is now alive — in India. 
Pococephaliis mcyeri is a small bird, not much larger 
than a blackbird, but much more thick set. It has the head, 
neck, mantle wings and tail brown with olive shading, often 
with a broad crescentic yellow band across the crown. The 
back, rump, upper tail-coverts, and under parts are bluish-green, 
of a very fascinating tint. Bright yellow decorates the bend 
and edge of the wings, the under wing-coverts and the thighs. 
It is a common bird in the Transvaal, where it is often kept as 
a pet and becomes exceedingly tame. It is perhaps the most 
widely distributed and the commonest of South African Parrots 
occurring even so far West as Senegal. " Bessie " — for so 
my representative was named, when I received her — shows 
very few signs of old age, but she takes a long time, in fact 
several months, getting through her moult. She is very tame 
and affectionate with myself, and loves to come out of her caga 
and nestle on my shoulder, but she is not over fond of visitors. 
Her residence consists of a large square wire cage, 23/^ feet x 
I feet broad, such as one could buy for twenty-five shillings 
in those far-off happy pre-war days. I have removed the metal 
platform, so that Bessie can grovel in the sanded bottom to her 
heart's content. She has fresh sand every day, and, of course, 
fresh wa'er, and lives in a fireless room, being carefully kept 
out of all draughts; for this, I need hardly say. is a most import- 
ant point. When the weather is calm and sunny she goes out 
of doors for several hours a day. Her food is very simple, 
consisting of sunflower, hemp, canary seed and here and there 
