Vlll 
INTRODUCTION. 
In the matter of food for Parrots, the public has yet very much to learn: 
the traditional bread and milk, like the customary hard-boiled egg for 
Canaries, is a mistake: Parrots are graminivorous, that is to say, vegetable 
feeders; a few of them, it is true, live almost exclusively on honey, and a 
less number are partially insectivorous in their habits, but no known bird 
of this genus touches flesh in its wild state, the rumoured partiality of the 
Nestor notabilis for live lambs notwithstanding. Therefore to feed a bird of 
this description on animal food, such as milk, butter, bits from the table, 
bones and so on, is to force it to partake of an unnatural diet, which is 
certain, sooner or later, to produce disease, and ultimately to destroy the 
bird. To argue that because a Parrot appears to enjoy such an abnormal 
course of feeding, it is good for it, is about as sensible as to say that 
children love sweetmeats, and may, without endangering their health, be 
fed largely, if not exclusively, upon them, for Parrots, like children, are 
not always, indeed never, able to discriminate between those things that 
are suitable for them, and those that are injurious. 
The larger Parrots require large seeds, such as maize, oats, dari, buckwheat, 
and dry biscuits (without milk or butter), nuts of various sorts, Brazilian, 
cob, and especially monkey nuts; and the smaller varieties, canary seed, 
millet, hemp, and a few oats occasionally. As all these birds in their wild 
state subsist more or less on unripe, or at least soft seeds, and fruit of 
different kinds, apples, pears, grapes, and oranges may be included, with 
discretion, in their bill of fare; and a portion of the different kinds of seeds 
that are offered to them should always be supplied either boiled or soaked 
in water until soft. 
Again, these birds should always have access to water: it is true that 
many of them will exist for a long time, even on a diet of dry seed, without 
drinking, but Parrots in their wild state always drink, if even some of them 
confine their potations to sucking the drops of dew off the leaves and 
grass ; and in captivity water is even more necessary to maintain them in 
health, for the staple of their food is dry, and they have not the chance 
of sipping the pearly drops of dew. Deprivation of water produces indi- 
gestion, causes heat and irritation of the skin, and often leads to the poor 
bird stripping itself bare of feathers. 
Although a Parrot has a strong beak, it has no teeth, and is unable to 
masticate its food, swallowing the smaller seeds whole, that is after having 
stripped them of their husks, and the larger in little fragments, which re- 
quire softening in the crop, and triturating in the muscular stomach or 
