PASSERINE PARRAKEET. 
39 
seed to any other, but eating freely of bread soaked in cold water, 
and squeezed nearly dry: they do not seem to care much for green 
food, but nibble a little fresh grass now and then. 
They do not drink much, and we have not seen them bathe. 
Their cry is harsh, and loud, but is not very frequently heard: the 
pairs converse with one another in a little subdued chatter, that sounds 
rather prettily, but they are usually silent and undemonstrative when 
under observation, which, as they are very quick, is not of frequent 
occurrence without their knowledge. We have watched one, through 
a loop-hole, for a quarter of an hour at a time, and have never seen 
him budge, his keen black eye fixed intently on ours all the while; 
and as soon as we looked away, he was off like a shot to the furthest 
corner of the aviary. 
Although so timid at other times, the hen Blue Wing sits as devotedly 
on her eggs as airy bird with which we are acquainted, even suffering 
her cocoa-nut husk to be taken down and carried to a distance without 
deserting her charge. 
In their wild state these birds breed in the hollow branches of 
trees, but in the bird-room or aviary seem to prefer a medium-sized 
cocoa-nut husk for their nesting-place: they make no nest, properly 
so called, but content themselves with removing the superfluous fibre 
from the interior, and smoothing it down for their use. 
They are better kept in a place by themselves, two or three pairs 
together, but are not to be trusted to the tender mercies of Budgeri- 
gars, Madagascars, or Red-faced Love-birds. A male, however, will 
mate with a female Madagascar ( Agajiornis canal), and even, a friend 
writes us, with a female Red-face ( Agapornis pullaria ) , but whether 
the progeny of such unions, if progeny there were, would be capable 
of reproduction, as another acquaintance of ours is inclined to believe, 
we cannot say, though we doubt the fact; but if so, these three biids 
would be simply local varieties of the same, and not three distinct 
species as they are generally considered to be. 
Will some of our readers make the experiment, and kindly acquaint 
us, in due time with the result? 
There is another species of Love-bird that is often confounded with 
that under consideration: the resemblance between the two is so 
considerable that even Dr. Russ considers it an open question whethei 
it is anything more than a variety of the ordinary Blue-winged 
Parrakeet; but we think it is. In the first place it is a decidedly 
larger bird, has a smaller beak, and the only blue about its person is 
on the under wing coverts, where it is not, of course, seen unless the 
bird is flying. 
