XIV 
INTRODUCTION. 
a tin collar round the bird’s neck, anointing the breast with oil, strewing 
the bottom of the cage with feathers, have answered in some cases, and 
failed in others. So that the owner of a feather-eater would do well to give 
all the above plans a trial, so that if one did not succeed another might. 
Shower-baths, too, have been suggested, but are not generally successful; 
parasites must of course be looked for, and guarded against, and if there 
is any skin irritation, a cooling diet, consisting largely of green food, might 
be tried: but some cases defy every attempt to cure them, and all are 
more or less troublesome, requiring a great deal of patience and perseverance 
if any good is to result from the adoption of remedial measures. Some 
months since we bought a Green Parrot that had plucked all the feathers 
off its breast, and was, generally, in very poor condition; we turned it out 
into a garden aviary well supplied with logs, and the bird is now in perfect 
plumage, and as sleek and handsome as possible. 
If it is desired to breed Parrots, they should be placed in as roomy a 
cage or aviary as practicable, unless so tame that they can be permitted to 
have the range of the house; their abode must be fitted up with hollow 
logs of suitable size, suspended high up against the wall, to keep them 
out of reach of mice, or a small barrel, with half a cocoa-nut husk firmly 
cemented to the bottom, may be placed at their disposal, and will often 
be taken possession of in preference to a hollow log. Boxes with a flat 
bottom surface are objectionable, on account of the eggs rolling about, and 
running the risk of taking cold, for few members of the Parrot family make 
any nest, properly so called, but deposit their eggs on the bare wood of 
their abode. 
W T. G. 
