34 
SWIFT PAIiRAKEET. 
shoulders and upper part of the primaries blue, the under side of the 
wings red, the tail red with a blue tip, the breast and belly green 
with a yellow shade, flecked with red, the beak is reddish yellow, 
the legs and feet grey, and the eyes black. 
The female bears a general resemblance to her mate, but is rather 
smaller. 
The usual diet of these birds in captivity is canary and millet, but 
boiled oats may be advantageously added, and, during the breeding 
season, bread crumbs, coarse oatmeal, and a few insects of some 
kiud, black-beetles or tipulte rather than mealworms, but the latter, 
cautiously, in preference to none. 
The Swifts make their nesting-places in the hollow boughs of the 
gum trees of their native land, and lay from four to seven white eggs, 
a little larger than those of the Budgerigar, and have usually two 
broods during the season, which extends from September to January. 
We have not heard of their having been bred in captivity as yet: in 
fact they are so seldom imported, that but few amateurs have had 
an opportunity of making the attempt. 
In the Zoological Society’s Gardens the Swifts are fed on boiled 
rice sweetened, and are not allowed any water; under such a course 
of treatment it is not surprising that there should frequently be a 
change of tenants in the cages allotted to them. 
The price is about £3 a piece, or very nearly the weight of the bird 
m gold: it would consequently be well worth the while of any amateur 
to try and breed them, and this we intend doing as soon as practicable; 
for hardy as they are, when once fairly acclimatised, easy to feed, at 
least in comparison with many other species that are kept and bred 
without difficulty, none of the elements of success are wanting in their 
case. 
While it is admitted on all sides by aviarists that immense pleasure 
and satisfaction is found to exist iu the successful rearing of a brood 
of even the commonest birds of exotic origin that are kept in cages 
or aviaries, the enjoyment is enhanced ten-fold, nay a hundred, even 
a thousand -fold, when the fostering care of a painstaking amateur 
results in the appearance on the scene of a young family of rare and 
beautiful birds, which have never before been bred in England. What 
a wonderful amount too of pleasant gratification there is in penning 
a full, true, and particular account of that success for some bird-loving 
friend, or even for a gentle public enamoured of bird-life, and only 
too anxious to go and do likewise. 
Well, everyone must make a beginning, and if the advice given in 
these pages is exactly and carefully followed, we flatter ourselves that 
