24 
RED-BUMPED VARRAKEET. 
alone incubates, her mate rendering her no assistance, his cheerful 
song, as he sits at no great distance from the hollow log that contains 
the precious eggs, excepted; for he does not even feed her, nor, as 
far as we have been able to ascertain, does he feed the young until 
these have left their natal log, and are able to fly about after him, 
and importune him for food. 
We have found that half a cocoa-nut husk cemented into a small 
box made a capital nest that was much appreciated by these birds, 
which do not seem to care about excavating a dwelling for themselves, 
when a ready-made one has been placed at their disposal. 
We_ fed on seeds only, canary, millet, hemp, oats, of which they were 
particularly fond, and dry bread-crumb : Dr. Russ, however, recommends 
the following diet when the birds are nesting: — “Egg-bread, ants’ 
eggs, softened rice and fruit; also mealworms, green food, and poppy 
seed.” 
We cannot endorse his further statement that they are sociable with 
little birds, “ Vertraglich unter kleinen Vogeln ”, but they do nest readily 
( leicht ), and bring up three or four broods in the season, as the doctor 
further relates: they are hardy, too, and will pass the coldest and 
most severe of our winter out of doors without injury. 
The male and female are very much attached to each other, so much 
so that if one of them should escape, it will, after a fly round, return 
to its companion, and suffer itself to be captured without resistance. 
These birds are very strong on the wing, and it is quite a pretty 
sight to see them wheeling round and round in the sunshine, or darting 
in and out among the trees, with the foliage of which their feathers 
harmonize so well in colour. 
We believe that, like most of the Australian Parrots, the Redrumps 
are partially insectivorous, but they will, nevertheless, thrive perfectly 
well without insect food. In winter it is advisable to give them plenty 
of hemp, and they will then touch little else but that valuable and 
highly nitrogenized diet. 
It is a pity they are so tyrannical and quarrelsome, for otherwise 
they are very nice, and the song of the male bird, especially during 
the season of love and courtship, is, as Mr. Wiener says, “quite 
surprisingly agreeable.” 
Dr. Bodinus, of Cologne, was the first person who bred these birds 
in Europe, but since then they have bred in innumerable aviaries in 
this country, as well as on the continent; and in fact more Redrumps 
are now yearly bred in Europe than are imported from Australia, and 
the price has fallen to about twenty or twenty-five shillings a pair. 
The young resemble their parents in a general way when they leave 
