4 
ROSE-HILL PARRAEEET. 
of tlie fancy sorts of the former bird, command a much higher price, 
and we wonder that Parrots are not more frequently kept on a large 
scale than they are, for they are excellent eating, and their feathers 
in much request for ladies’ hats and bonnets. 
A strong, well-built aviary, plenty of hollow logs, that is all that 
is needed for a Pernicherie: with the exception of the Cockatiels, 
however, which we have never found to interfere with their fellow- 
captives, most of the Parrots would require an aviaiy to themselves, 
but as the greater number of species are gregarious, several pairs of 
the same kind may, usually, be kept together, and, providing there 
is plenty of nesting accommodation about, will not interfere with each 
other’s arrangements: many species, indeed, breeding better in company, 
than when one pair only is kept. 
It is needless to reiterate that a sufficiency of nesting accommodation 
must be provided, or adieu to peace, and to all hope of increase in 
the Perrucherie : but when this has been attended to the birds will 
soon settle quietly down, and rarely meddle with one another, for 
Parrots, on the whole, are sociable birds, and get on better in com- 
pany than when kept in solitary confinement in a cage; though some 
misanthropic individuals seem by their conduct to contradict point 
blank this assertion: nevertheless that there are exceptions to every 
rule is well known, establishing rather than overturning it: and that 
this is the case with Parrots, the experience of every aviarist who has 
kept them in any numbers will, we think, confirm. 
When forming a collection of Parrots in an aviary, it will be well 
to group together the species that more nearly approach each other in 
size and habits: thus we would not recommend placing Sulphur-crested 
Cockatoos in the same enclosure with any of the Love-birds, although 
some species are usually so amiable and accommodating, the Cockatiel 
for instance, that they will get on in any company, minding their own 
business with praiseworthy assiduity, without ever inquiring what their 
neighbours are doing, what they are going to have for dinner, who 
their relations are, or what means they have for getting on in life, as 
so frequently happens with the superior creature man. 
Needless to plant trees or shrubs in an aviary of Parrots, but hollow 
logs, trees even, will be a great boon to the inhabitants, affording 
them not only snug retreats in which to deposit their eggs, and hatch 
and bring up their young, but also an infinite fund of amusement, not 
to gay delight, and exercise to boot, for nearly all the Parrots are 
born “ whittlers”, and if they have not a handy log “convenient”, as 
an Irishman would say, on which to exercise their powerful mandibles, 
they will find some other and more objectionable mode of whiling away 
