22 
BLUE BONNET PABBAKEET. 
tribe in captivity, not excepting tbe Budgerigar. Introduced into an 
exposed out-door aviary last spring, immediately after importation, 
without any attempt at acclimatisation, they have undergone hardships, 
both as to exposure and food, under which even the Cardinal has 
succumbed, and yet they never had an hour’s sickness. They are 
seen to the best advantage when seated on a lofty perch, with their 
primrose underside, so curiously aproned with blood-red, exposed to 
view; their elaborate bowings and antics are calculated to produce 
shouts of merriment. They seem the mildest of the inmates of the 
aviary, but they are really its most insiduous assassins. I have found 
young birds with their pinions cruelly mutilated, although they were 
apparently safe in small cages; young Budgerigars, valuable Bourke’s 
Parrakeets, Turquoisines, and others, dead or dying, with their wing 
joints mutilated, or their heads smashed; and I never was able to trace 
the assassins, until one day I saw my innocent looking pets, sidle up 
to a delicate graceful Dove, seize him by the wing, and begin to 
gnaw him savagely. They will live for months with smaller birds on 
the most friendly terms, but in the end they will clear an aviary of 
all weaker than themselves, although like true assassins, they never 
attack one of their own size. It is only fair to say that these are only 
imported birds, and that some I have bred myself have not developed 
this murderous tendency. For hardiness, intelligence, grace, and most 
amusing ways, commend me above all to the Blue Bonnet, but be 
sure to keep him with birds who are his match iu strength, or, better 
still, in a small compartment by himself, when he will be a model of 
good behaviour.” 
Having no one to fight with, or to murder, he will be perfectly 
inoffensive, no doubt; but as we have already remarked more than 
once, birds vary in their dispositions, as Mr. Johnson himself admits, 
and one pair of Blue Bonnets will be found to be as peaceable and 
orderly, as another is cantankerous and objectionable. 
In size these birds are somewhat less that the Cockatiel, but of 
more slender build. As Mr. Johnson remarks, they are very hardy, 
and thrive exceedingly on a diet of oats, to which they are especially 
partial, canary seed, millet, hemp, and boiled maize : they are very fond 
of green food of all kinds, and especially of the bough of some tree, 
such as elm or poplar, which they soon peck to pieces with every 
manifestation of delight. 
Much of the mischief wrought in aviaries by one sort of bird, or 
another, is due to overcrowding: better keep four birds comfortably, 
than a dozen where they have not room to turn round without treading 
on each other’s heels. 
