38 
COCKATIEL. 
tliat lettuce should never be given to captive birds until it has become 
“wilted as the Americans say, in the sun, or even been kept a day 
or two in the house. Some Cockatiels we once kept in an aviary along 
with a pair of Eed-crested Cardinals, were accustomed to partake so 
largely of the insect food, black beetles, mealworms, caterpillars, tipulee, 
etc., provided for the use of the latter, that we were compelled to 
remove them; which inclines us to the belief that in their wild state 
the Cockatiels, like many other members of the Parrot tribe, are by no 
means averse to an occasional tit-bit in the shape of a fat grub, a white 
ant or two, or any other succulent insect morsel they may chance to fall 
in with; but in captivity they do perfectly well without such exceptional 
dainties; we are, however, without any data as to their habits in this 
respect in their native wilds, and the insect-eating proclivities of our 
Cockatiels may quite as well have been an instance of depraved appetite, 
as a reversion to an ancestral and natural habit. 
With other birds, large and small, the Cockatiel agrees perfectly: 
in fact it permits itself to be shamefully bullied by a pert male Budge- 
rigar, or a saucy Eed-rump, without the least attempt at retaliation, 
and may be kept, with entire safety to the small fry, in company with 
even the tiniest of the Astrilds, or ornamental Finches. The only 
approach we ever saw on the part of any Cockatiel to aggressive be- 
haviour was in our favourite “Joey”, who, on the introduction into his 
domain of a solitary Madagascar Love-bird, flew at the stranger with 
out-stretched wings and opened beak, so that we immediately placed 
ourselves in readiness to rescue Agajjornis cana, should need be for 
our interference: but there was none, for Joey, having aijparently satisfied 
himself that the sti’anger was not a dangerous personage, gave himself 
no further trouble about him, and he has lived evei’ since with the 
Cockatiel family in peace and amity. 
These birds are’ not, as far as we are aware, given to forming 
friendships, much less matrimonial alliances, with birds of another 
species; but we were once shown a curious looking creature, that was 
said to be a hybrid between a female Eed-rump and a male Cockatiel, 
to which latter bird it certainly bore more resemblance than to the 
former; but this is the only instance that has come to our knowledge 
of such a mesalliance on the part of our exemplary friend the Cockatiel. 
